


hold fast to dreams

by tothevision



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: (except Kara doesn't know they're established), (its complicated), Canon Compliant, Established Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, F/F, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Lucid Dreaming, Memory Loss, Post Season 5, SuperCorp, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:49:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 47,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28373436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tothevision/pseuds/tothevision
Summary: After they defeat Leviathan and the Luthors, Kara's earned some well deserved rest, but when she wakes up, it's to a completely different world.or...|| another amnesiac/parallel Earth/time traveling/Black Mercy/coma Kara fic ||Actually, Kara has no idea what's going on and neither do you.
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 111
Kudos: 383





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing she noticed was that she slept well. Really well. The kind of slumber where you feel perfectly awake and ready to go before you even open your eyes. Her bed was even more comfortable than usual, and the sun was...coming from the wrong direction?

Kara opened her eyes to find that her ceiling was not her ceiling. Gone were the exposed bricks. It was still a high ceiling, something that Kara always loved about her loft, but the crown molding and pristinely painted white was not what she was supposed to be looking at. Sitting up, she discovered that she was definitely not in her bed and definitely not in her loft, the place where she definitely remembered falling asleep last night.

It was a bedroom that she knew for certain she’d never been in before, but it was strangely familiar. Wide open and curved, but not entirely circular. That was the only thing that kept her from thinking she was having a lucid dream of her old bedroom on Krypton. Instead, she could see it was a merge of the sleek minimalism of Earth architecture with towering ceilings and walls of glass that allowed an extraordinary amount of sunlight.

Looking out the windows, Kara gasped and jumped out of bed. She stepped right up to the glass, resting her hand on the sun warmed pane. Wherever this was, this place, it seemed to be on some hillside or mountaintop. The sun was rising over National City. It blanketed the room in a warm, golden hue. Kara could feel the strength of the yellow sun growing stronger as it infused the cells of her body in that invigorating tingle that went straight down her spine and sparked something even deeper within.

It was large and lovely, but a touch too… _different_ for a bedroom on Earth. It stirred something much too familiar, too close to memories long gone. Stunning floor to ceiling windows mirrored both sides of the room. A forest behind her, the city in front of her. Kara gazed around in wonder. It wasn’t the oval shape of her family home in Argo City, but instead of intersecting at the corners the way almost all Western architecture did, it seemed to blend somehow. The slightest softening of the corners and extensive exposure to sunlight gave an otherworldly feel to what was otherwise a normal bedroom on Earth.

Never did she think she would see something like this here. If it wasn’t for the yellow sun and National City’s skyline, she might have dared to wonder… But then that would mean this was a dream and this did not feel like a dream.

The windows were so large and expansive, she was surprised she didn’t feel more exposed, like she would if this was the city, but she wasn't in the city anymore.

She also wasn't alone.

Kara zeroed in on the sound of someone moving downstairs. Only one other person in this building with her as far as she could tell. They were huffing and straining. She heard them slap the floor with their palm in frustration. Snatching a pair of her glasses off the nightstand, she carefully exited the bedroom and found herself in a spacious hallway. Following it, she reached a stairwell, and slowly made her way down, body taught with hands curled into fists as she readied herself for whatever attack might come. It opened into a sprawling living room where she could see the kitchen on the far left and a dining room on the opposite side.

There was a woman on her hands and knees on the floor. She seemed to be trying to reach something underneath the couch that was proving elusive.

Lena.

Without thinking, Kara sped to her side and lifted the couch almost completely off the floor. Lena snatched her heel with a small cry of victory. Kara put the couch back down while Lena stood, putting the shoe on to match the other she was already wearing.

Kara sighed in relief. Finally! Lena could explain what was happening. Maybe there was an alien threat and the DEO had to relocate Lena to a safehouse? If it this was a safehouse, Kara was going to be supremely annoyed that they’d kept a gorgeous place like this under wraps after all these years. But if that was the case then why didn’t she remember any of it?

Lena smiled widely at her, seemingly unconcerned in the slightest, and before Kara could even open her mouth, she walked right up and kissed her.

Kara froze.

“My hero,” Lena teased and her gaze flickered down. She chuckled, using her thumb to swipe off some of her lipstick from Kara’s mouth before breezing past her. The light click of her heels on the hardwood floors echoed in Kara’s ears.

Her brain was short circuiting. She didn’t dare more…hardly even breathed.

This was a dream after all. It had to be. She was having a very realistic, but totally implausible dream. The shoe stuck under the couch was probably a metaphor or symbolic for something right? It wasn’t like she’d never had dreams before where weird things like this happened with Lena. Should she pinch herself?

But somewhere in the back of her racing mind, she heard Lena say something about running late for a meeting and tried to bring herself back to the present. Even if it were a dream, it would be so rude not to pay attention to Lena.

“Lunch at my office today,” Lena was saying as she walked through the kitchen, “I don't care how busy it is at Catco or even if the building's on fire.” She looked at Kara over her shoulder. “You can't make promises like you did last night then stand me up...” The sly grin and suggestive tone had Kara in a full body blush even though she had no idea what Lena was talking about.

She just knew it wasn't what they _should_ be talking about.

Lena, however, didn’t seem to think there was anything odd at all as she whirled around this strange house with practiced familiarity, picking up her coat, purse, and looking for something that eventually turned out to be her cellphone.

“Order us something that something you know I would never get for myself. I'll need every trick in the book to lift my mood after dealing with these pricks for the next three hours.”

Kara was dumbstruck at how this was playing out, but Lena was about to disappear out the door and she knew she was going to lose her chance to say anything at all. She finally managed to get her brain working enough to open her mouth and called out to her.

Lena looked back curiously, door open, hand on the handle. “Hm?”

It was on the tip of her tongue.

It really was.

Kara wanted to ask her just what the hell was going on, what world had she just woken up in, and why was Lena acting...like this, but when she looked at her, all she could see was how bright and unburdened Lena was. The new day's sunlight poured in from behind her and Lena was...

She couldn't bring herself to do it.

“I...I just wanted to wish you luck,” she said with an honest-to- _Rao_ smile that showed she meant it. “I hope you have a good day.”

Lena smiled back, a small crease in her forehead at why Kara seemed so serious, but she didn't question it further. “Thank you, darling. It’ll be a good day when I see you again later.”

When the door closed behind her, Kara exhaled so hard that she accidentally shifted everything in the living room three inches over.

* * *

Her suit still materialized from her glasses, thankfully, and Kara flew to what should have been the DEO building...but it wasn’t there.

_Oh. Right._

She’d forgotten that the battle with Leviathan had leveled the DEO skyscraper. But the rubble from the destruction that only occurred a week ago had already been cleared away. Kara landed on the ground where the building once stood and was dumbfounded. This should have been an ugly massacre of glass, steel, and concrete. Craters in the ground from the impact. Instead, she was standing in a beautifully landscaped park with a number of children running around a playground while adults strolled down pathways lined with trees, flowers, and benches. Quiet conversations and youthful laughter. There was a wrought iron arch over the entrance: ARGO CITY PARK. Kara found herself looking up at a statue of Supergirl. Smaller than the one by the waterfront, but much more detailed. Her hands on were her hips, the cape frozen in the air majestically behind her as she stared ahead with a closed mouth, gentle, and – dare she say it – heroic looking smile on her lips.

A young cry startled her.

“Supergirl!”

Utterly bewildered, Kara waved to the little girl, but left before any others could join in. What universe had she landed in? None of this made any sense. The multiverse had been destroyed. She couldn’t be in an alternate reality and this was much too real to be a dream. So where did that leave her?

Alex. She needed to find Alex.

Flying with near frantic desperation, she went to Alex’s studio, only to find that Alex didn't live there anymore. Without thinking, she sped off to her own loft and her stomach lurched at the sight. She walked through her apartment that she’d only just gone to sleep in last night and nothing was the same. Any furniture left was draped while almost everything else was cleared out. It looked as though it hadn’t been used in years. A glorified storage space.

Panic started to set in.

J’onn. She could find J’onn.

And there she was able to breathe her first sigh of relief. The Tower was still operational. More than that. It’d gotten a pretty cool makeover, not to mention a mind-blowingly impressive tech upgrade, but it was still the Tower and there was still her name on the call button. Kara was relieved to know that at least one place she remembered still bore her name as it should. There were other names added on alongside hers that she didn’t recognize, but she ignored that. Now she was even more determined to find answers for this new world. There had to be someone, somewhere who would know her, who would know what was happening. Unfortunately, J’onn was nowhere to be found. That left Kara with the last place she could think of.

After a quick change into the clothes she managed to grab off the floor in the bedroom before she left, she walked into Catco Plaza. Once on the elevator, pressing the familiar button, she took a small breath in respite.

Here was one thing that hadn't changed. The building still looked and felt the way it was supposed to. The elevator even smelled the same.

 _Ugh._ Kara scrunched her nose at the thought. The situation had to be desperate if she was relieved by the smell of a highly trafficked elevator.

But the moment she stepped out onto the main floor of Catco, her respite came to an abrupt halt. Staff accosted her from all sides. Some were people she knew, some were complete strangers, but they all seemed to need something from her. They were talking a mile a minute, crowding around her, asking for things like approval on ads to run, reminding her of staff meetings, running down a list of calls she needed to return, and so on.

Nia, a blessedly familiar face in this strange world where people were under the wildly mistaken belief that Kara was in charge of this sort of thing, pulled her away from the gaggle and into Andrea’s office.

Except it didn’t look anything like what Andrea had turned it into and it wasn’t the same as when it was Cat's office either. The only thing that remained unchanged was the wall of glass that looked out over the bustling media floor.

“Nia!” Kara gasped and clutched her arm before hugging her so tightly that Nia exhaled in a giant whoosh. “Oh, thank goodness. Someone I can talk to!”

“You’re so late!” she exclaimed reprovingly after disentangling and catching her breath. “You missed the news meeting and everyone is at each other’s throats trying to make their claim on a story this week. Where have you been? If it was a _Lena_ morning, why didn't you text me like usual so I could cover?”

“A...a what?” Kara squeaked, stammering as a very pointed blush creeping up her cheeks. “No. No! I mean, I don’t think so?” She shook her head, trying to gain some semblance of thought. “But where have I been? That’s a great question! Except I’ll do you one better - why is everyone acting like they need my approval for all these things?”

Nia, confoundingly, just laughed. “Eventually you’re going to accept that you’re the boss now, Kara. It’s been a year already and you’re great at it. When are you going to let it go?”

This could not be happening.

Kara fiddled her with glasses nervously, trying to suppress the panic bubbling up inside her. “I’m...I’m the _what_?”

Nia rolled her eyes. “Alright, lady. I’ll leave you to your cognitive dissonance. But you really need to get a hold of the reporters before they eat each other alive. Can I assume that my piece on the gentrification of Alien City Fashion District is still a go?”

Kara couldn’t make head nor tails of it.

“Uh. I mean, yeah? Yes! Sure.”

“Great! Thanks. I’ll get back to it, boss.”

“W-wait!” She gulped, scrambling to find some solution.

Nia seemed trapped in this...illusion as well. Nia and Lena. What were the chances that Alex, if Alex existed here, would be any different? But she had to try.

“I’m...I’m having a bit of an off day. I left my phone at home and I... Could I borrow yours for a second?”

“Of course!” She whipped it out and unlocked it, handing it to her.

“Thank you! I’ll just be a minute.” She scrolled through the contacts to find Alex’s name and called her.

She tried to be mindful of how hard she was gripping the phone as she waited. Crushing Nia’s phone to smithereens would not be helpful right now. Then that blessedly familiar, wonderful, amazing voice of her sister filtered through.

“Nia, what’s up?”

“Actually, it’s me. Hi!”

“Kara?” She could hear the concern laced with amusement. “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you lost your phone again.”

“Well, I don’t think I technically lost it…” Nia raised an eyebrow at her and Kara just waved her off. “It’s probably back at…” She stumbled as the memory of the house, and Lena in that house, sat itself vividly front and center. What was she supposed to call it? “My place…somewhere.”

“Kara! This is the 3rd time in 4 months. Do we have to surgically attach a comm device to your ear now?”

“That is a complete overreaction!” she said reflexively. “I didn’t even really lose it. I don’t think I did anyway… But that’s not the point! Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Talk?” Alex’s tone turned serious. “Yes, of course. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah! I think so. Maybe?”

“Kara…” There was increasing concern in her sister’s voice now.

“I’ll explain when I see you! Um. Where are you?”

“At work,” she replied carefully. “Where else would I be?”

“So, the DEO. Okay. Uh.” Kara winced. “C-could you remind me what the address is again?”

Nia was talking to another employee when Kara shoved the phone back in her hands and rushed by with a whirl of apologies and vague excuses about how she’d be right back.

* * *

Alex was at the new DEO headquarters that was located just outside of the city. Kara flew in apprehensively, scanning the building as she went. It looked a lot like the old DEO. Just a new location. Thankfully, they did not revert to being stationed in a cave again.

Stupid bats...

Alex strode up to her with that intensely familiar look of concern. “I know it’s been a while since you’ve been here, Kara, but forgetting the address? Just because you’re turning 35 soon doesn’t mean you’re going senile.”

Honestly, Kara barely even heard her. She was just so relieved to see her sister after the strangeness of this morning and yanked her into a massive hug. Of course, that’s how Alex knew something was really wrong.

“Come on.” She tilted her head in one direction and led Kara through a maze of identical looking hallways until they were sequestered in a private room. She closed the door and hit a button on the panel that seemed to cut off all room surveillance. “Okay, talk to me. What happened?”

Kara immediately launched into it, explained everything, and left nothing out. Alex was her sister. She had to know something. She had to be able to help even if this illusionary world had her brainwashed too. She could always count on Alex to pull herself out. She had to make her remember.

“Wait, wait, whoa.” Alex’s eyes were wide as she held out her hands for Kara to slow down. “You're telling me that the _last_ thing you remember is defeating…Lex and Lillian?”

“Yes!” Kara cried, pacing the length of the room. “We all went for drinks to celebrate at Al's and then I went home, totally exhausted, and went to sleep. When I woke up...everything was...like this!”

Alex took a deep breath. “So you’re telling me that you don’t remember anything from the last six years?”

Kara spun around on her, heart hammering in her chest.

“What are you talking about?”

“Lex and Lillian…” she replied slowly, “are gone. Lex died rather than be captured and Lillian is in supermax. We defeated them six years ago.”

Kara shook her head, bewildered. “No… No, that can’t be right. That’s not possible. It just happened yesterday! That’s…”

The look on Alex’s face was too grave to deny.

Serious. Worried. Resolved.

Kara looked closer and realized that the wrinkles around her sister's eyes were a little more pronounced than she remembered. Her hair was longer than it had been in years. She couldn’t have grown it out that much overnight. Everything started to click into place. It all made so much more sense.

Well, some things made more sense.

The other things were still as stymieing and mystifying as all get out. Having memory loss certainly did not explain what she woke up to this morning. It just couldn’t.

“You really don’t remember anything else?”

“No.” Kara managed to stop pacing and faced her with arms folded tightly. “Though, I mean, it explains why I moved and, wow, did I get a major promotion...and a park! National City likes me a lot more now apparently.” She moved closer curiously. “Have we gotten over the aliens versus humans thing? Did we achieve world peace? Oh!” She clapped her hands suddenly. “Did Frank Ocean finally release a new album?”

Alex’s look was scathing as ever. “Seriously?”

“Okay, forget the last one.”

Her sister sighed, still very much alarmed, but tried to answer her (relevant) questions calmly. “After the DEO sky-rise was destroyed, we rebuilt here. Lena bought the land where the old building was and developed it into a public park in honor of Supergirl.”

Kara’s heart sped up again.

“Lena…”

Alex grabbed her arm worriedly. “You don’t remember Lena?”

“Of course, I remember her! But I don’t...” She trailed off uncomfortably before leaning in conspiratorially. “Alex,” she whispered, “I think I might be _dating_ Lena.”

The elder Danvers took a deep breath, scrubbing her face wearily. “You’re not dating Lena,” she muttered.

Kara exhaled in relief, giggling, and put her hand on her chest. “Oh, so we’re roommates? That’s fun! I mean, we were finally back on good terms and she forgave me, and I forgave her, and it was...it felt like it was going to be okay, but I was still super nervous! Now it’s for sure that we're okay. Great! Cause this morning was really confusing and that would have made things way more complicated than— “

“You’re not dating Lena,” she cut her off, “you’re married.”

A beat.

Then Kara's cry was so shrill that Alex winced in pain.

“ _WHAT_? Married! To _who_?”

Her sister was quickly losing what little patience she had left.

“Kara, you’re married to Lena Luthor. She’s your wife. You’ve been married for 4 years now. You live in that ridiculously gorgeous house because you said you didn't like penthouses and Lena wanted more room than your loft had. Plus, I’m pretty sure she wanted a bedroom with a door on it. Something about being an adult and whatnot. None of this rings a bell for you?”

Kara didn’t realize that she’d stopped breathing until Alex clapped her hard on the back to snap her out of it.

“I’m...I’m...”

“Just keep breathing,” she said calmly.

“I don’t...”

“You’re going to be okay.”

“Alex!” she cried. “How...HOW IS THIS HAPPENING?”

“No, no, no. Stop right there," she pleaded, holding her hands up. "You are not going to freak out about this. Because then I'm gonna freak out more and that can't happen right now.”

"W-w-well too bad!" she spluttered frantically. "Because I am FULLY freaking out! I’m married? To _Lena_. My best friend. Well, former best friend turned enemy turned temporary ally… And I don’t remember any of it!”

“I just want to take this moment to point out that you’re happily married, so...just consider that too while you're processing, okay?”

“I DON’T REMEMBER ANY OF THIS!”

“We’ll figure it out!” Alex grasped her shoulders tightly and gave her a shake. “I promise, Kara. We will figure out what happened and you will be fine. Let me get Brainy on this, all right? We’ll start running some tests and take it from there. We got this.”

Kara took deep gulping breaths, trying to calm herself. “Yeah. Okay. That sounds good.”

When she released her grip from the table, it had two very noticeable handprints from where she crushed the metal.

* * *

They ran some preliminary tests. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Kara had Brainy check about ten times to be certain that she was actually from this Earth and not some parallel universe, even though the multiverse technically didn't exist anymore.

By the 5th time, Brainy was starting to lose his patience.

By the 10th, he begged her to leave him alone.

There were no residual particles to indicate a reality shift and no possibility that it could happen since there were no more alternate realities.

Brainy was saved from Kara insisting he check “just one more time” when Alex walked in and announced that there were no reports of Supergirl having any major encounters in the last 2 months.

“How have I not fought anyone in 2 months?” she replied in disbelief while Brainy scrambled for the exit. “I've had slow days, maybe once there was a slow week, but two months? No way!”

“The last thing was an earthquake in Tibet that you helped with, not a fight. You’re semi-retired now. We bring you in as the big gun. You've inspired a lot of people over the years, Kara, and several of them who have abilities decided to step up and become heroes themselves. We work with an elite team of superheroes that partnered with the DEO so they didn't have to go it alone as vigilantes. It’s really been amazing. And, because of that, you get to live a more normal life without having to fly into every emergency.”

“Wow..." She tried to consider it. "Kind of hard to imagine what that looks like.”

Alex had her sit down as they went through some more routine tests, but Kara's fidgeting was getting worse. Her nerves and restlessness becoming more apparent with each one they went through. While they were waiting on results, it made every second seem to tick by that much slower. She started pacing again while Alex was on a stool in front of a bunch of monitors. Seeing how it was affecting her, Alex shifted gears, and started talking in that casual, comfortable, easy tone that made it sound like they could have been on Kara's couch eating take out for Danvers sister night rather than in the DEO lab with countless agents she could see walking by on the other side of the glass wall.

“Hey. I know how scared you must feel and how overwhelming all of this must be, but we’re going to figure this out.” She smiled reassuringly. “And, just so you know, even though there's a lot that's changed over the years, this life? You’re happy. I mean, being CEO of Catco kind of drives you insane sometimes, but you even love that because you and Lena get to work together since you guys own it.”

“I own...I _own_ Catco?”

Kara could only believe so much. This couldn’t be real. None of this could be real. Maybe she was trapped in her own mind again. Maybe Mxy was back and this was another twisted game of his. Because this just couldn’t…be real.

Could it?

“Well, you’re a majority share-holder,” Alex amended. “Lena gets pissy when we don’t use the ‘correct’ terminology. Whatever.” She rolled her eyes fondly. “She bought it back from Andrea soon after the Lex and Lillian thing was handled. Then she asked Sam to come back and help transition Luthor Corp back to L-Corp again - what a nightmare that was - while she stepped in as CEO of Catco. So, you know, equal distribution of assets between married couples...”

“So, I became CEO because I'm m-married to Lena?”

The word felt foreign and clumsy on her tongue.

“Sort of. You deserved it, but you refused to take the position for a while. You didn’t think you could handle it and wanted to stay a reporter, but Lena needed to devote her time to L-Corp again. You guys tried hiring a few acting CEO’s and it was basically a disaster each time. Lena finally put her foot down. I think she literally chained you to the CEO office using Nth metal one night. There’s more to that story, but I begged you never to tell me it.” She wrinkled her nose and closed her eyes. “As your sister there are things I just do not need to hear.”

Kara blushed about three different shades of red.

“But it really changed when Lena called in the big guns.”

Kara scoffed. “What because chaining me to the office wasn’t convincing enough?”

Alex tossed her a look. “You’re impossibly stubborn when you convince yourself of something, you know that.”

“Fine. So, what did Lena do?”

“She called Cat Grant.”

Kara gasped. “She didn’t!”

Alex laughed. “Cat flew in the next day and kicked your ass all over that building. Lena said she found you hiding in a storage closet at one point.”

“And now I am both owner— uh, majority share-holder—and CEO of Catco Worldwide Media.” She shook her head in disbelief. “No. This isn’t possible. None of this makes any sense! I would never agree to this! How can you be so calm? This is against everything we talked about, everything I have built for my life on Earth! We all agreed. Kara Danvers stays in the background. She doesn’t draw attention. She blends in. No one bats an eye for Kara Danvers. You know this, Alex!”

“I do know that.” She nodded sympathetically. “And…we thought it was the right thing to do. The _only_ thing to do. Mom and Dad knew how it worked for Clark, so we all figured we just needed to do the same to protect you.”

“And now that’s changed?” she replied disbelievingly, but Alex only shrugged.

“Yeah. It did. Look, we didn’t know of another way back then. When all of this started happening, you know, with Lena and then Catco, the spotlight, we had this exact same conversation about a hundred different times. It came down to Lena making a really good point and Clark actually agreed with her, which had us all shocked, believe me.”

“Which was what?”

“There’s not much difference between living unknown in the shadows and living unknown by hiding in plain sight.”

“Are you-are you joking? That makes zero sense!” Kara cried, tugging her fingers through her hair. “Do you hear yourself?”

Alex took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. “The Luthors crossed paths with Bruce Wayne many times over the years. Do you know they never guessed his identity?”

“Who?” she asked blankly.

“Kate’s cousin.”

“Oh, yeah.” She nodded impatiently. “Okay. So?”

“Wayne Industries is one of the largest corporations on the world stage. You may not know his name, but everyone else does. His secret identity has never been revealed. Clark is good friends with him, apparently. He’s seen how you can live a life just as unknown with your face splashed on every magazine and newspaper as you can tucked away on a small farm in Kansas.”

“So you’re saying the way one random guy in a costume, a _human_ , chose to live his life is the reason why I threw away everything I’ve been doing for the last 15 years?”

“It’s not just him," Alex retorted, exasperated. "Remember the President? She was under more scrutiny than anyone on Earth short of the Kardashians and she still wasn’t discovered--”

“Until Lex Luthor tried to have her assassinated and exposed her as an alien to the entire world? Cause that turned out so well…” Kara dropped down to a chair and crossed her arms pointedly, each word dripping with sarcasm.

Alex rolled her eyes. “Lex is gone and there are more examples, but the crux of it is we discovered that the more you opened yourself up to the media and publicity, the likelihood of people pointing to you as Supergirl was even less than when your name was only a byline in Catco magazine. The more that people see you as Kara Danvers, wife of Lena Luthor and CEO of Catco, there's less of a chance that they will even stop to consider that you could be Supergirl. It’s like their brains can’t put the two concepts together. They don’t recognize you even when your picture is blown up next to Supergirl’s on a billboard!”

Alex shook her head with a tired wave of her hand.

“I know it’s crazy and it’s still crazy to me, but apparently it’s something to do with, like, reverse psychology or whatever. I don’t know. Brainy or Lena could explain it better. I just know that it’s worked. I actually worry less about people finding out about your identity now than I do about paparazzi falling over themselves trying to catch you and Lena in some kind of domestic scandal.”

Kara stared at her unblinkingly.

“I’m serious!”

She’d never had a headache before, but she could swear one was forming now and it hurt. Kara pinched the bridge of her nose. “ _Rao_ , Alex. This is...a lot.”

Her sister squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“I just don't understand. Why can’t I remember? If I'd fought something otherworldly, maybe it could be a virus, or if there was a bad guy, maybe we could say they tried to poison me. Something! Anything! But you're saying nothing happened. Did someone put the equivalent of a Kryptonite roofie in my coffee?”

“We’re going to figure it out,” she repeated firmly. “Give us time.”

Time.

Kara had this lingering feeling that there was somewhere she was supposed to be. But that was ridiculous. She couldn’t remember anything from the past six years, but apparently knew there was an appointment to make today? Her gaze landed on the clock on the wall.

“Oh, no!” She gasped and jumped to her feet. “I’m supposed to meet Lena for lunch! I promised her I would. I mean, I think I did? She told me that I did so I'm pretty sure I did.” Her hands moved through the air in a flurry. “I have to go!”

“Wait, Kara, no, that’s not a good ide— “

But Alex was talking to an empty room.

“Oh, God,” she groaned.


	2. Chapter 2

Kara knocked, peering through the crack in the door, her stomach a sea of nerves, and waited until Lena looked up from her computer screen. The biggest smile spread across her face when she saw her and it was enough to quell the nerves a bit. She walked in holding up a bag of Big Belly Burger in one hand and a tray of milkshakes in the other.

“I hope this fulfills your request?”

"Perfectly." Lena stood up with a chuckle. “God, it’s been ages since we’ve had this! How is it that you always know exactly what I need?”

She came closer and Kara catapulted into a state of extreme panic. Lena's not-so-subtle insinuations of what Kara's _promises_ were from this morning still weighed heavily on her mind and she had no idea what to do. When Lena leaned in to kiss her hello, Kara all but dove to the other side of the office and devolved into high pitched, manic giggling, like someone who belonged in a psych ward.

Lena was...perplexed.

“Is everything all right?”

“Yeah! Totally! Why do you ask? I’m starved. Let’s eat!”

She was still giggling in a totally not normal or at all calm way when Lena walked back to her desk to look at something. Taking a deep breath, Kara emptied out the bag and mentally yelled at herself to get it under control. Just because she didn’t remember a huge chunk of her own life right now didn't mean that she had to act like a lunatic. She just had to find a way to explain to Lena what was happening, and she knew the other woman would be understanding. At least...she hoped she would be. They were clearly on better terms than ever before, right? Kara swallowed hard. Maybe the milkshakes would help ease them into it.

So focused on her own internal battle, she happened to miss the part where Lena pulled out a very sophisticated looking gun from under her desk and leveled it at her.

“Oh, w-w-whoa!” She held her hands up in shock. “What the—!“

Lena leaned back against the edge of her desk casually, gun outstretched and aimed at Kara’s chest. “You’re going to tell me exactly who the hell you are and what the fuck you think you’re doing.”

“Le—"

“Oh, and if you think this is just your average handgun, you’ve severely underestimated me. Answer my questions or you’re going to find yourself with a two-foot hole in your chest from the energy blast.”

“It’s me! I swear! I know I’m acting a little off — a _lot_ off — but I have a really good explanation for it. I-I was trying to figure out a way to tell you, but then this happened...” She gestured to the gun lamely.

“You have 5 seconds before I pull this trigger.”

“Lena!” she gasped. “I... Call Alex! She knows! She’ll tell you!”

Pursing her lips, she considered it, then with her free hand, she picked up her cell and put it on speaker. Her aim never wavered.

Alex picked up and before she could even say hello, Lena beat her to it. “Who the fuck is in my office?”

“Hi, Lena. I’m fine, how are you?” she replied calmly. “I assume you’re having lunch with Kara?”

“Alex!” she exclaimed. “Please explain—“

“Quiet!” Lena eyed Kara warningly. “Alex?”

“Yeah, it’s her. But she’s experiencing significant memory loss. Some kind of partial amnesia. We’re working on some theories right now and waiting for test results. If you want to lend a hand, we'd be more than happy to have you.”

“You’re certain?”

“Yes, we did full body scans, brain waves, the works.” Alex's voice grew gentle. “Lena, it’s Kara, it really is. I promise.”

Lena lowered the gun and Kara started to breathe normally again. She probably would have been fine against whatever it was, but with Lena...she’d learned the hard way to never underestimate her.

“I’ll be in touch,” Lena said simply and hung up. She placed the gun on her desk and folded her arms across her chest. “Partial amnesia?”

“Jeez, Lena, what was that about?” Kara smoothed down her shirt nervously. “When did you get so trigger happy?”

“After a shapeshifter came into our home pretending to be you and held me hostage for two days,” she replied curtly.

Kara’s eyes widened. “ _Oh_.” Her voice softened immediately. “Oh, Lena, I’m so sorry... I had no idea.”

“Right,” she said tersely. “Well, I think you have some things you need to fill me in on.”

“I do. I totally do.” Kara nodded vigorously. “But...do you want to eat first? The fries are going to be soggy.”

It seemed to be the right thing to say because some of the tension in Lena’s body released and she gave her a small, fond smile.

“Yes, we can eat first.”

* * *

Lena was sitting back against the couch, deep in thought, while Kara sat across from her on a chair, noisily slurping the last bit of her milkshake.

“This morning must have been very strange for you,” she said quietly.

Kara put the empty cup down and nodded slightly.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I think I was in shock... A part of me was convinced that it was all a dream and I would wake up soon. But...”

“But what?” Lena finally looked up from her hands and Kara realized that she’d been toying with her wedding band, twisting it over and over.

Which made her look down at her matching own and her stomach did somersaults that were not entirely unpleasant.

She swallowed hard, ducking her head. “You looked so happy. I-I was going to say something, I swear! But you _looked_ at me like...” She sighed. “I just couldn’t. Not then.”

Lena inhaled deeply, trying to accept that.

“So you really don’t remember anything from the last six years? Us? Any of it?”

“No. I-I mean, yes. Yes, I don't remember. I don’t know what happened to me. I went to sleep in my bed in my apartment then woke up...”

“In our bed.”

The tips of Kara’s ears burned. “Yeah,” she managed to squeak.

“I imagine that was quite a surprise.”

Kara nodded, unable to trust her voice with anything else at the moment.

“Are you really so repulsed to find out that we’re together?”

Kara’s eyes nearly bugged out of her head.

“No!” she cried and jumped up from her chair, almost leaping over the table to sit next to her on the couch. Instinctively, she reached out to take Lena's hand, but second guessed herself and brought it back to rest on her lap. “Oh, I-I, no. That’s not it.”

How could Lena possibly think that? How could she let it cross her mind for even a single solitary second?

Kara took a deep breath. “It’s just been really kind of jarring to go from you despising my existence, being so angry with me and hating me _so much_ , for over a year and then literally just when we’ve reached a truce after taking down your mom and your brother, the next day I wake up to find out we’re _married_... I-It’s a lot to process. But I would never be ‘repulsed’,” she choked on the word. “ _Rao_ , Lena!” She exhaled in wonderment, eyes wide as saucers. “It’s _you._ I’m...I’m experiencing a lot of emotions right now. Can you understand that?”

She still didn’t meet her eyes, holding her hands together so tightly that her fingers were turning white. “When you put it that way...”

Kara sighed. “Will you-- Would you be willing to help Alex and Brainy find out what happened to me? I hate this. I hate not knowing all that happened. I hate that I’ve hurt you.”

_Again._

Lena looked up sharply. “You haven’t hurt me, Kara. You’ve done nothing wrong. And, of course, I’m going to help. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Give me a few minutes to clear my schedule and then you can fly me to the DEO.”

She managed a grateful smile at that. “Okay.”

Lena went back to her desk, talking to her assistant over the intercom and shot off a few emails. Kara eyed the gun that was still on her desk with unease. Knowing that Lena had to take such extreme measures to protect herself had her stomach in knots. When Lena glanced over and caught her staring, she seemed apologetic, but didn’t say anything. Instead she took the gun and put it back into its hidden compartment under her desk.

It was Kara who apologized and Lena looked up at her in surprise.

“Whatever for?”

She crossed her arms tightly, looking at the floor with her mouth contorted almost angrily. “That I haven’t done a better job of protecting you.”

Lena sighed at that as she closed her laptop and rounded the desk to stand in front of Kara. She seemed to want to hug her, but caught herself at the last second and instead tugged at her fingers anxiously while standing inches away.

“I guess you don’t remember, but we’ve had this conversation before. Many... _many_ times. It all comes down to this - I knew exactly what kind of life I was choosing when I married you, Kara, and I have never once regretted it. There’s always a danger in being close to Supergirl, but somehow, in all those conversations, you also manage to forget just how dangerous my life already was by being a Luthor. In fact, I have a compelling case for how much safer my life is _because_ of you. I even developed a lifespan prediction using data compilations of a timeline without Supergirl versus a timeline with her. And I’m here to tell you that every projection shows I live a hell of a lot longer when you’re in my life. Not to mention I’m happier for it.”

Kara shook her head in bemusement. “Is it in a PowerPoint presentation?”

“Don’t mock.” Lena raised her chin. “I spent a full night working on it after one of those arguments because you were being infuriating with your stubborn clinging to the idea of being noble and trying to stay away from me for my own good.”

“Hm. How long did I last?”

“Half a day. It would have been less, but I had a meeting that morning that couldn’t be rescheduled.”

Kara giggled, ducking her head shyly. “Figures.”

“How so?”

She shrugged. “I’ve never been able to deny you anything, Lena.”

A slow, teasing grin spread across her lips. “Oh... _that_ I do know."

Kara’s cheeks burned as she fiddled with her glasses, unable to meet Lena’s eyes, but felt oddly pleased despite it all.

“I’m finished here if you’re ready for the DEO?”

“Oh! Yes. Right. Totally. Um. One sec!"

She left the office in a hurry, which gave Lena just enough time to put on her jacket and lift her purse over her arm before Supergirl appeared on the balcony and pushed open the glass door from the outside.

"Your ride is here, Miss Luthor."

Lena couldn't help but shake her head. "I cannot believe you just said that."

"What?" Kara pouted. "Too corny?"

"Too _something_ ," she muttered and cleared her throat.

Kara had the distinct feeling that she was missing something, but couldn't dwell on it for long because Lena stepped so dizzyingly close that their bodies were nearly touching. She didn't understand why her heart was racing like this or why the scent of Lena's perfume was making her feel... No. She hesitated only for the briefest moment before making up her mind, scooped Lena into her arms, and shot into the sky.

* * *

Kara was sitting on the exam table, kicking her feet impatiently as she looked around the room. It was basically the same as the old DEO medical bay, with just an upgrade here and there. The building itself was smaller than the sky rise. She'd taken the liberty of scanning each floor in her boredom…twice. Alex was busy attending to her responsibilities as Director and Lena said she was going to check out what Brainy was working on because Brainy refused to be anywhere near Kara after how she 'tortured' him earlier.

Maybe she was too bored.

Because she started listening in to see if she could find anything of interest or maybe if they'd already figured out what was wrong with her but were too scared to tell her yet.

She found Lena's voice at once.

“What am I supposed to do? My wife of four years doesn't remember being my wife! Let alone dating me, loving me, or even...I don't even know if she's _attracted_ to me.”

Alex snorted. “Don't be ridiculous. Kara is sickeningly obsessed with you. I've heard you two going at it on more than one occasion. Have I thanked you lately for putting those god-awful images in my head?”

“You don't understand.” Her voice dropped to a tight whisper. “It was always there for me, but...”

“Attraction?”

“Yes. But it wasn't the same for Kara. We talked about it a long time ago and she said she didn't see me that way. Not at first. It was like everything was there for her except that one part.”

“Lena..." Alex's voice dropped gently. "You know that had nothing to do with you."

"Believe me, the scientist in my head explains it in great detail. However, the rest of me..." she trailed off.

"I get it," Alex said kindly, "but I really don't think you have to worry--"

“I don't know what changed!" she cried. "I don't know what I did or didn't do to make it happen...but _something_ changed. Clearly. And then we started dating.” She sighed. “Kara described it like a faucet, and once it was turned on, it never stopped.”

Alex’s voice was strained. “I'm trying so hard to be an adult about this, but you're talking about my baby sister.”

“If the last thing she remembers is Lex and my mother, then that was when she still...” Her voice trembled. “Alex, she _hated_ me back then. And she certainly didn't have any romantic inclinations towards me. How am I supposed--”

“We are not going through this again,” she interrupted sternly. “Kara never hated you. Not for one single second. Was she pissed? Hell yeah. I know I was. She was angry and hurt, rightfully so. You two were hot messes back then and it was a really... _really_ long year. But did she hate you? No. Not ever. The Kara in there is still Kara, just with some missing memories. I'm sure the... _faucet_...” she choked on the word, “is still on. Please don't ever make me use that metaphor again. We're going to find out why this happened and fix it.”

“And if we don't?”

“Then you'll start over and she'll fall in love with you all over again, just like she did before. Actually, didn't she ask you out first? Wasn't she already—? Forget it. We're not getting into this because it's pointless. It won't happen. I won't let it!” she insisted. “Neither will you. So, stop panicking, pull yourself together, and let's find out what happened to your wife and my sister, okay?”

Lena sighed quietly. “Okay.”

She sounded so small.

Kara stopped listening, unable to process any of what she just heard, but she could have sworn the sound of her heart pounding was echoing off the cement walls for all to hear.

* * *

The test results showed nothing out of the ordinary. Lena joined in the effort and they worked through the day, hooking Kara up to what seemed like every contraption the DEO had. She knew if none of this worked, she was going to end up in Lena's sub-floor lab at L-Corp soon.

They ran through every possible cause of amnesia - seizures, substances, traumatic brain injury, tumors, even psychic attacks. They called J'onn in. Even though he couldn't read Kryptonian minds, he could still assess the aftermath of any psychic phenomena, but he found nothing.

Regardless, Kara was happy to see him and gave him an enthusiastic hug. Shortly after though, he was called away for an emergency, and Kara was already half out the door with him before J’onn was able to clarify that it was a non-superhero emergency.

Dejected, she plopped back down on the examination table.

Meanwhile, Alex, Lena, and Brainy were stumped.

Kara was in perfect health, just as she always was, much to the human grumblings about superior Kryptonian physiology. Brainy suggested the possibility of it being the result of psychological trauma and therefore undetectable by their means.

“But there's been no big events for a while, personal or Supergirl related,” Lena reasoned. “Why would something happen now?”

“A question for a psychologist, to be sure. It's not my area of expertise.”

With nothing else to lose, Kara shrugged, and looked at Alex. “I guess we could call Kelly?”

Alex immediately stared at the floor and Lena winced while Brainy seemed to find something across the room suddenly fascinating and disappeared.

“ _Oh.”_ She didn't need this one explained. “Alex, I'm so sorry.”

“It's fine,” she said stiffly, avoiding eye contact. “It's been a while.”

Lena stroked Kara's back reassuringly. 'It's okay,' she mouthed to her when Alex turned back to fiddle with the controls of the machine Kara was hooked up to.

Kara's mouth was dry and, shamefully, she wasn't thinking about what her sister was dealing with in that moment. Instead, all she could think of was how Lena's hand was on her back. It'd been so long since there were even casual touches between them as friends. A hug here and there, and then for so long...nothing. Now she was standing so close to her, their bodies almost making contact, and she was rubbing her back as if it were nothing all. As if it was the most natural thing in the world. And the strangest part? It _felt_ like the most natural thing in the world.

How did they stay away from each other for so long? How could Kara have let them reach the point that they did? She tried to shake off those thoughts, drawn in by the feeling of Lena's hand on her again. The only thing that separated her from touching bare skin was the thin cotton of the DEO exam gown. Lena had just enough pressure on her to make Kara feel the motions perfectly as she rubbed soothing circles between her shoulder blades and occasionally drifted to her lower back. Her stomach was somersaulting again and her heart hammered against her chest. She shivered involuntarily and tried to keep her eyes on the medical bed. To think of anything except how it felt to have Lena touching her.

Of course, she would never get a reprieve. Lena, damnably, noticed it.

“Kara? Are you...are you _cold_?”

Alex turned around in surprise at the question. Kara looked between the two of them like a deer in headlights.

“Uh. N-no. Why would you say that? I'm never cold.”

Alex looked to Lena for an explanation while Lena took her hand back, folding her arms against her chest as she scrutinized her.

“You shivered. What was it? Did you feel something unusual?”

Kara felt her cheeks heating up quickly and wanted nothing more than to vanish from this room right this second. “Nothing unusual! I'm _not_ cold. I'm fine. I totally shiver sometimes. It's a thing...for me.”

“Kara, it's really important that we explore any symptoms you might be experiencing, no matter how small,” Alex said firmly. “We have nothing to go on right now, so whatever it is, just tell us. That way we can either consider it or rule it out. We have to know everything."

“It's not a symptom! It was nothing. Seriously! Can we just move on?”

The two women were a formidable pair as they stared her down, waiting, and Kara could feel herself shrinking by the second.

“It's _nothing_ ,” she tried again weakly, face burning now. “I just...” She swallowed hard and glanced at Lena before looking back down at her hands. Her voice dropped and she spoke so quickly that neither of them understood. Mortified, Kara groaned and tried again, mumbling, “It just felt nice when you were rubbing my back.”

Alex snorted and shot Lena a look. “Told you it was her.” She went back to monitor the readings on the computer.

Kara quickly glanced at Lena and her heart fluttered at the gentle, pleased expression on Lena’s face. At least she hadn’t upset her for once. It’d been so long since she’d been able to make Lena look like that…

Thankfully, the two of them seemed to take pity on Kara and didn't press the issue further. She leaned back on the exam table with a sigh, willing her face to cool down.

What. Was. Happening.

* * *

They debated how much detail they should give Kara about the missing years, to which Kara strenuously objected.

How could they think of keeping anything from her? She needed to know everything!

Alex and Brainy were concerned about how much that would impact the engrammatic centers of her brain. It could possibly cause a conflict with her mind's attempt to recollect old memories if new and old memories were being coded simultaneously.

Lena seemed to be leaning towards their hypothesis as well until Kara tried another tack.

“But what if I just need a trigger? If they're in there, but blocked off somehow, wouldn't it make sense to continue telling me about my life until something clicks?”

Alex rolled her eyes. “That only happens in movies.”

“Not necessarily,” Lena interjected with a shrug. “She could very well be right about needing something to connect to a strong sense memory.”

“There's sufficient evidence to say that you might never regain these memories,” Brainy said. “I calculate a 23.7% chance of total recovery.”

“Evidence based on what?” Lena snapped. “We have no data or any kind of lead on what caused it to begin with!”

Brainy looked a little frightened of Lena now, having moved on from Kara after this morning, but still drew himself up to full height. “My calculation is based on prior medical histories with similar amnesiac patterns that are also unresolved.”

“And how many of those cases involved a Kryptonian?” Lena demanded.

“Oh! Um. Well, in that case, I would have to say...none?”

Lena looked like she wanted to sock him in the face.

“All right." Alex stepped in between them warily. “Let's just play it by ear. We'll agree to not to overload Kara with information.” She was ready to object, but Alex knowingly held her hand up to stop her. “ _However_ , we will answer your questions as they come up organically. Fair?”

Reluctantly, she agreed. “Fair.”

“Good. Let's take a break for the night and we'll be back on this first thing in the morning. I'll check in with you to assess whether or not there's further degeneration or signs of this being unstable.”

“You think it could get worse?” Kara asked.

The possibility of that hadn't even crossed her mind until now.

Lena inhaled sharply but said nothing. Kara could hear the uptick in her heart rate.

“If it's a disease or virus, that has so far been undetectable by our means, it's most likely that these symptoms would be progressive and further memory loss all but guaranteed,” Brainy answered.

Kara tried to think of what it would be like to wake up tomorrow and...not even remember half the people she remembered now. She felt sick to her stomach.

“If that happens, if I get worse--”

“We're not there yet,” Lena interrupted. “Let's not jump to conclusions or go down any rabbit holes, okay?” She shot Brainy such a fearsome glare that he visibly withered beneath it.

Alex nodded in agreement. “We just don't know anything yet. That's the problem. But Lena's right, no rabbit holes, no spinning, and no crinkle, okay?” She tapped her between the eyes affectionately. “Come on, there's nothing else we can do tonight. Time to go home.”

Brainy nodded and eagerly left the room as quickly as possible. Probably because Lena was still glaring at him. Kara was kind of surprised by that because Lena and Brainy had always gotten along so well before.

“What about work?” she asked. “I-I have...I mean,” she looked at Lena sheepishly, “ _we_ have a company that I'm supposed to run. But I don't know anything about it.”

“I can step away from L-Corp for a while to take the reins,” Lena said immediately. “You don't need to worry--”

“Actually,” Alex cut her off, “I think that might be a good thing for you, Kara.”

“What? Screwing up Catco by being completely inept?”

“You're the one who suggested that familiar things could possibly spark your memory, right?” Alex shrugged. “If you want to attempt the Hollywood solution, you should keep your regular routine. That means going to Catco and running the company. I'll talk to Nia and, Lena, maybe you could have a conversation with Kara's assistant to see how he can be more supportive.”

“Done.”

Kara gasped excitedly. “I have an assistant?”

Alex and Lena exchanged a wary glance. One that said they clearly did not believe this was going to go well.

“Oh, hey, nu-uh! That's new and totally not okay with me. You two are not allowed to gang up on me!”

“ _Way_ too late for that,” Alex replied smugly and patted her leg before she took off. “Goodnight!”

“Aw, man...” Kara pouted up at Lena. “Do I hate that usually? I bet I complain about it a lot.”

Lena sighed. “I suppose we should head home.”

“Oh. Oh! Right. Yeah. Cause we live together...”

Her anxiety must have been all too obvious because Lena’s gaze dropped quickly as she focused on anything in the room except Kara.

“However, that might be a bit too much right now.” She swallowed thickly. “Which is completely understandable. I'm sure Alex wouldn't mind--”

“No, no!” Kara didn't know why she was rushing to assure Lena of the opposite when, yes, it was _definitely_ too much, but she just couldn't bear for Lena to know that. “It's not. It's totally fine. We should...go _home_. I'm flying us, right?”

She looked conflicted for a long moment before finally tilting her chin down, still unable to meet Kara’s eyes. “All right.”

They walked down the DEO halls side by side, Lena's heels clicking quietly while Kara's cape ruffled gently behind her. Neither seemed to know what to say. So, Kara went with the first thing she had.

“What's up with you and Brainy?”

“Hm?” Lena replied absently, looking at her for a long moment before the question seemed to register. “Oh. Nothing. Brainy's one of our best friends.”

“Really? Cause you were like this close,” she held up her thumb and index finger, “to biting his head off in the literal sense.”

“I didn't turn cannibalistic in the last six years.”

“Hey, you never know what could happen. I am wide open to all possibilities.”

Lena shot her a look. “Brainy and I are fine. Honestly. I'll...” She groaned. “I'll apologize to him tomorrow. You're right, I was hard on him. I didn't mean to be. I was just frustrated.”

“And worried about me?”

“Of course I am,” she replied softly.

“It'll be okay, Lena. Whatever happens, it'll be okay. Even if I have to get a psychic to remap my brain, I will make this better. Oh, hey! That's a great idea!”

“No, no, it's absolutely _not_ a great idea. J'onn already warned us against such methods. We could end up scrambling your Q waves permanently. Do you like the idea of frying your brain?”

“I guess not. Sheesh. Just spitballing here.”

“Maybe we can postpone that for tomorrow?” she asked tiredly. “It's…been a lot for both of us today.”

“I can do that.” Kara nodded. “So are you-- Are you ready for me to...” She made an awkward sweeping gesture to indicate that she was ready to fly.

Lena chuckled seemingly despite herself. “Just about. Give me a minute to get my things?”

Kara was gone and back in a gust of wind, grinning proudly. Lena was now holding her purse and jacket.

“Got it!”

Lena's smile grew and she softened in a way that Kara hadn't seen since before she left the house this morning. “Thank you, darling.”

Kara felt the tips of her ears burning at the lovely way the endearment rolled off Lena's tongue, dripping like warm honey and so filled with affection. It made her feel such things in her chest that she couldn't contain herself, she burst into giggles and ducked her head shyly.

What surprised her even more was the way Lena laughed in response.

“What?” she asked, cheeks still flaming. “Are you laughing at me?”

“Only a little,” Lena admitted. “It's just...you used to do that a lot in the beginning. When I called you that.”

“Oh. I-I did?”

“Unfortunately, our communication skills weren't up to par yet and I misunderstood. I thought you were uncomfortable with me using terms of endearment. So I stopped altogether and you were so hurt. You thought I was upset with you. It was a bit of a mess, but we worked through it. The way you looked just now...it almost felt like the beginning again.”

“Of us... _dating_?”

Lena nodded.

“In...in a good way?”

“I'm feeling very fondly nostalgic at the moment, so, yes, in a good way.”

“Good,” Kara breathed. “That's...um...good.”

“You said that.”

“I know,” she groaned. “I'm trying. Go on easy on me.”

“That's not what you—” This time it was Lena who blushed as she cut herself off abruptly and coughed, feigning interest in the hemline of her shirt quite intensely. “Never mind.”

Kara thought her face was red before, but this time the blush spread through her entire body and there were some parts of her that were reacting in a very new, different, way.

* * *

When they flew out into the cool night air, they both breathed a sigh of relief, but Kara's heart stuttered when Lena tucked her face in the crook of her neck to escape the wind. Arriving at what was apparently _their_ house, Kara almost passed over it just so she wouldn't have to let go of Lena so soon.

But it was a stupid thought and she chided herself for even considering it.

“What do you think of our home?” Lena asked. “Is any of it familiar?”

Kara looked at her, then down at the house and realized that while she didn't fly over it, she'd inadvertently just stopped altogether, and they were hovering high above it.

Thank goodness it was dark enough that Lena couldn't see the absolute crimson of her face.

“No,” she admitted. “But it is beautiful. I'm actually kind of surprised it's not bigger. I thought you would have wanted...”

“A garish mansion filled with antiques and gadgets and lethal booby traps and secret rooms like a proper Luthor?”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Not like that, silly. But I guess I always pictured you on some lavish estate...like Downton Abbey."

Lena chuckled. “Castles are too drafty for me. I get cold easily.” She wrapped her arms around Kara's neck a little tighter as if to make her point. “No, I love this. It's been perfect for us. But you're not far off about the estate aspect... We do own a fair bit of land. A little over 500 acres.”

Kara just laughed. It really didn't surprise her that Lena would own enough land to be a national park.

“I needed the room for something else,” she explained. “Also, that amount of private property makes it easier to safeguard your identity when you're flying in and out of here all the time.”

“What did you need 500 acres for?”

“Well, I didn't need that much for my project, but it's still been useful. Take a look.” She gestured vaguely to an area on the far right of the house. Kara only saw a walkway that led to a small structure that was a little larger than a shed but wasn’t really big enough for much more.

“Is that a guest house?”

“Oh, no, that's your art studio, but that wasn't what I was referring to.”

Kara blinked, trying to process the fact that she had her own _studio_ when Lena gently tapped her on the temple.

Ah.

She used her X-Ray vision to explore deeper and gasped, zipping higher into the air without warning to take it all in. Sure enough, there was a behemoth looking structure underground that was so expansive it looked like it ran the length of a small city. But Kara couldn't see what was inside of it.

“Lead. Really?”

“Have to protect against all possibilities,” Lena replied unapologetically. “It's my lab and, trust me, a far better option than relying on the DEO to solve our problems. The DEO serves its purpose and I'm happy to continue funding it with all the incredible work Alex has been able to do with the new team of heroes, but it's still too exposed for my liking. My lab has all sorts of safeguards and multi-layers of protection that the DEO can't even come close to since it's in the public eye."

“ _Of course_ your lab would be 30 times larger than your house.” Kara snorted. “It's like 300,000 square feet down there, Lena!”

“Well, it started with us needing more room to house the spaceships that some of our overnight guests like to travel here in...and then I just went with it.” She shrugged. “I'm still a Luthor. Honestly. What did you expect?”

Kara shook her head endearingly as she floated them down to the front door of the house and eased Lena onto her feet. “I knew some things could never change. Tell me, how many times have I gotten lost down there?”

“Too many.” She chuckled. “So I built an AI to be your personal guide. It's worked perfectly ever since.”

Kara's jaw dropped. “You made me a Kelex?”

“Bite your tongue.” Lena glowered. “Valor is far more sophisticated and capable than that moody pile of rust.”

Kara struggled to hide her amusement as Lena opened the door and they walked inside.

“How did you and Brainy end up with this grudge match against Kelex? What are you guys doing in the Fortress when I'm not looking?” She paused. “On second thought...maybe I don't want to know.”

Lena put her bag down and toed off her shoes. “That one I'll leave for you to remember on your own.”

Kara was grinning from ear to ear as she watched Lena put her things away, but the giddy playfulness started to fade the longer she stood awkwardly in the foyer, decked out in her suit. She realized that she had absolutely no idea where to go or what to do. This was supposedly her house too. Her home. With Lena.

But she didn’t have the faintest recollection of it.

“What…” she trailed after Lena who’d walked into the living room with a yawn, “what should I do now?”

Lena stopped short and Kara saw her shoulders tense, but when she faced her again, her expression was impassive as ever.

“You can change upstairs if you want. In our bedroom. You have a closet. I’m sure you can figure out which one is yours.”

Kara nodded quickly in gratitude and sped away from the uncomfortable encounter, but as soon as she was upstairs, guilt walloped her in the gut. She covered her face with her hands and groaned in disbelief. Did she really have to use _superspeed_? How over-dramatic was that? She wanted a do over. She wanted to go back down there right now and simply walk away at a normal speed like anyone else would have.

She just…hated disappointing Lena.

* * *

After a quick shower and a look in the mirror, Kara discovered that she'd grown out her bangs and that her hair was a slight shade darker than she remembered. Wandering a bit, she soon found her own spacious walk in closet. Lena had her own to match and it came as no surprise that even as big as Kara's closet was, Lena's was still twice the size. Wrapped in a towel, hair dripping, she ran her hands over the many…many outfits hanging that she apparently accumulated over the years. It was all still in her style, a few things questionable, but more of it and meticulously organized.

Kara just had to laugh.

The size of her closet was about the same as her dorm room at National City University. Lena probably didn't have to push for this one. Kara imagined herself quickly getting over the novelty and filling up the closet so fast that Alex would have likely tormented her for months about it.

She found some pajamas in a built-in drawer of the closet. A matching grey set, super soft, and comfy looking. When she pushed the drawer back in, she noticed a tiny light flicker out of the corner of her eye. Curious, she turned towards it and used her x-ray vision.

Grinning, she bounced on her heels excitedly, and didn’t hesitate to place her hand on the wall over the hidden panel. It scanned her bio-signature and the wall opened to reveal a secret compartment that, sure enough, had various designs of Kara’s suit draped. There was even a wicked badass looking black and silver suit that she just barely resisted the temptation of trying on. There weren’t any Kryptonite suits in there, but knowing Lena, she guessed there was another version of this display down in that ginormous lab with various upgraded designs of the Kryptonite suit she would have tinkered with over the years.

Strange.

If you’d asked her yesterday if Lena would have given a second thought to improving the design of the Kryptonite suit, she would have dismissed it. Lena was only doing what she had to do to take down Lex and Lillian. Anything more than that? Well, she hardly cared enough about Kara anymore for that to rank on any list of priorities.

Sighing, she dressed for bed and shook her hair fast to dry it in a second. Lena was nowhere to be found. Kara listened carefully and knew at once that she wasn’t in the house anymore. It took a few moments of worrying silence before she finally picked up her heartbeat again with a breath of relief. Lena was outside but coming close again. She must have been in the lab, that's why she wouldn't have been able to hear her before.

Kara hated the lead lined walls even more.

She made her way downstairs just as Lena walked in through a set of French doors that, presumably, led to the backyard. Lena looked up from her phone and nodded at Kara’s pajama selection, but there was this soft tilt of her head with an expression that Kara couldn’t quite place.

She stepped towards her, moving slowly, as if trying not to spook a wild animal, and Kara inhaled sharply at the nearness. Lena reached up, her fingers brushing her cheek, as she removed the glasses that Kara didn’t even remember putting on. It was so habitual at this point.

“Not at home,” Lena said gently, folding them away. “Not with me. Not anymore.”

Kara felt as though her chest might burst. Whether it was sadness or happiness, she didn’t know. She just wished that this could be real. But it wasn’t. This would never happen.

Lena would never look at her that way again.

She found herself breathing once more when Lena moved away and watched her as she walked through the living room, placing the glasses on a side table near the foyer.

“So…did you find everything okay?”

“Easy enough,” Kara replied, aiming for casual. “Best closet ever. Don’t even have one in my loft and I can see what I’ve been missing out on. But weren’t you the one who just told me you were too cool for secret rooms? That you were _so_ above all that?” she teased.

The uptick of her eyebrow was all too familiar. “If you’re referring to where you store your suits, that’s a hidden compartment, not a secret room. There’s a significant difference.”

Kara had to bite her lip to contain her excitement and racing heart. It’d been so long since Lena joked with her like this. So comfortably, playfully…lovingly. If this had been yesterday, she probably wouldn’t have even been ready for Lena to act like that and she knew for certain that Lena wouldn’t have been either.

But six years had passed and even though Kara couldn’t remember it, every fiber of her being wanted to. Wanted to trust it. Wanted to believe it. Wanted to enjoy every single moment of it.

Yet there was still the lingering foreboding feeling underneath it all. How long would this last? When would it all be ripped away? Was this really Lena or was it another act? Was she waiting to catch her unaware just to hurt her again? Payback. If there was anything Kara learned for sure about Lena in the past year, it was that her pain ran deeper than she ever let people see and forgiveness was unthinkable.

That sick feeling twisted her in chest until it became hard to breathe. Kara quickly turned away, wrestling to get it under control.

“Right. So, uh, where do you—I mean, _we_ – keep the blankets?”

“Blankets?” Lena echoed, brow drawn. “What for?”

Kara gestured to the couch. “Just wanted to get set up for bed. I bet I could find them if you don’t mind me snooping a bit.”

Lena looked so genuinely confused for a moment that Kara didn’t know what to say. Then she appeared to remember and an inescapable sadness washed over her features before she could hide it behind her usual mask.

It hit Kara harder than an oncoming train.

She’d just reminded Lena, again, that she didn’t consider their house _her_ house or their bed _her_ bed. She was acting like a guest when this was supposed to belong to both of them.

“Don’t be absurd.” Lena swallowed hard. “You…you’ll sleep in the guest room, not on the couch.” Her voice was taut. “I’ll make up the bed.”

In that moment, Kara would have given just about anything to fix it. Which is undoubtedly why she heard the next words coming out of her mouth.

“Oh, right! N-no, you don’t have to do that. I just forgot! I’ll sleep in our bed. There’s no reason for it to be weird. We’re married. We…do that. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“Kara.” Lena exhaled softly, her eyes revealing so much more than she was used to. “Don’t.”

“But—" She stopped herself at the look Lena gave her.

“We don’t need to make this anymore complicated and uncomfortable than it already is,” she said evenly. “Let’s just get you set up so we can both have some much-needed rest after today.”

Tonight was not the night to fight this.

“Okay."

* * *

But how she ended up in a tug of war over the sheets with Lena for the guest bed, Kara still didn’t quite understand.

“I can do it myself!” she insisted. “You don’t have to do this for me. It’s my house too, right?”

Lena’s look was scathing. “You can’t even remember where the linen closet is.”

“Doesn’t matter because I have them now," she retorted. "Problem solved! I can take it from here.”

Before Lena could utter another word, Kara used superspeed to snatch the sheets away, made the bed, and was sitting against the headboard, tucked under the covers with a victorious grin.

“That's cheating,” Lena huffed.

“You know what they say, if you got it…”

They smiled at each other for a long moment, silence falling, and slowly the playfulness of the moment faded along with their smiles. Reality beckoned once again and Lena’s silence pressed in like a weight on Kara’s chest. But there was nothing she could say to make it better. She wondered if her future self would have known what to do, after years of being together, maybe she had all sorts of ways to lift Lena's spirits and take away that inexorable pain. But it was useless thinking. She didn’t remember.

Lena softly bid her goodnight and Kara echoed with her awkward own.

Yet, she couldn’t sleep.

Her mind wouldn’t stop racing, replaying all the events of today, yesterday…the past five years. The years with Lena that she could actually remember.

Things sounded different here than in her loft. She tried to listen in to the city sounds, miles away below them, instead of the quiet cacophony of nature, but even that familiarity didn’t help. She could hear Lena tossing and turning in the other room for what felt like the longest time. She was sure it was somewhere around 3am when Lena finally dropped off and began snoring lightly. The sound melted Kara's insides. Leave it Lena to make that as adorable as possible. Alex always sounded like a chainsaw. Kara would never tell her sister, but she’d slept the soundest she’d ever slept since she came to Earth when they no longer shared a room.

Eventually, she fell asleep as well, but only after tuning in to the sound of Lena's heartbeat.


	3. Chapter 3

Exhausted, but brimming with anxiety about having to go into Catco as the actual literal boss, Kara was on her 5th stack of pancakes that morning when Lena came down, fully dressed and flawless in her work attire. Her dress was form fitting and, honestly, a little tighter and shorter than Kara was used to seeing for a day at L-Corp.

“Um,” was all she got out around the mouthful of pancakes she'd just shoveled.

“Good morning.” Lena eyed the messy kitchen and Kara's plate. “Stress eating?”

“Carb loading,” she mumbled sheepishly then caved. “Yes! I am totally freaking out. I know how to be a reporter, but I'm not a manager! Nia was the first and only person I even sort-of supervised and not even in an official capacity. What do I know about being a CEO?”

Lena sighed affectionately and leaned across the countertop. “Stop. Put the pancakes down.”

Alarmed, Kara pulled her plate closer instead, but Lena didn’t let up.

“Put. Them. Down.” She said firmly. “And listen.”

Frowning, Kara slowly lowered her fork. Lena raised an eyebrow as she waited. Finally, Kara dropped it on the plate and sat back, showing that she was listening, but also made it clear how much she objected to being deprived of her breakfast.

“I am not looking to repeat what was essentially a 9-month military campaign to convince you that you were the best, most capable, and deserving person to run Catco. So I'm telling you right now, that is _not_ happening again, do you hear me?”

“But I--”

“You were Cat Grant's assistant for a record breaking 3 years. No one has ever lasted as long as you did and she rewarded you with the pick of any career you could possibly ask for. You worked directly alongside one of the greatest mogul's in the industry and you know much more about this job than you will ever give yourself credit for. You know the people to call. You know how Catco is supposed to work. You know the mission of the company. You know what a good story is and, even more importantly, what it isn't. You know how to let people do their jobs and they do it well because you are a great judge of character and have an incredible ability to spot talent and integrity. You're a natural born leader, Kara Zor-El. So, as uncomfortable as it may feel at first, to stand in front of a room full of staff and give orders, you just need to remind yourself that you have literally saved Earth and the universe from complete annihilation on more than a few occasions. People look up to you - both as Supergirl and as Kara Danvers. I once told you, early on when we first met, that Supergirl may have saved my life, but that you--”

“You said Kara Danvers was your hero,” she finished for her shyly, smiling. “Of course I remember that.”

“I meant it then and I mean it now. You have this in you, Kara. I’ve witnessed it firsthand. Go in there today and act like you own the building. Because you do. Literally. Our names are on the deed.”

Kara giggled disbelievingly, rubbing her forehead. “I never knew you were this good at pep talks. I would have come to you first instead of Alex all that time...”

Lena reached across the counter and squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Nia knows the deal and she will be there to help you navigate the routine. Your assistant will be completely understanding of any forgetful moments because he is under the impression that you had an elective surgery that requires a certain amount of painkillers during your recovery. He's expecting you to be a bit... _fuzzy_ around the edges.”

“Elective surgery?” Kara raised her eyebrows, ignoring the warmth radiating from where their hands touched. “What did you tell him I had done?”

“I told him if he dared to ask, I'd have him run out of the country.”

“Lena!”

“Julian will be fine,” she said dismissively. “Now I have to go, but you're going to be great today and if anything major comes up, remember, I'm only a phone call away. I'll help you with whatever you need, I promise. We're partners. You handle staff, content, and image. I do contracts, mergers, and acquisitions. We both deal with budgets and advertising and, yes, we do debate a bit over that, but it's not something we have to worry about today. Just know...” her voice grew softer, “you're not in this alone. You never have been.”

Kara sighed, feeling far more relieved than before the pancakes began. The tension flooded from her chest and she felt lighter again. Knowing that Lena had her back, the seemingly unshakable confidence she had in her...well, that was enough to make Kara feel like she could start leaping through space so running a major corporation couldn't be much more difficult than that right?

“Thank you.”

Lena smiled. “Always.”

Picking up her purse, she rounded the counter and Kara thought she was going to walk by her, but Lena paused just long enough to bend down and press her lips to Kara’s cheek for a lingering moment. Her heart all but stopped when Lena whispered against her ear before she vanished out the door.

Kara stared after her long after she was gone, heart thudding wildly and painfully against her chest. Gingerly, she touched her cheek where Lena's lips had been and wondered at how electric it'd felt.

Faucet.

* * *

“Good morning!” Nia raced up to her at the elevator, all teeth in her not-at-all-disguised nervous smile. “Just another regular day of being CEO of Catco, Miss Danvers!”

Kara shot her a look. “Do you seriously call me that now?”

“No, but I thought it would give you some encouragement.”

“Just be yourself, Nia.”

“Right. Okay.”

They continued walking across the floor and Kara could feel how many eyes were on her. She was exceedingly grateful for Nia shooing away everyone who tried to run up on them.

“How are you? I'm so sorry. If I'd known yesterday what you were--”

“Gosh, do not apologize, really. This has been...crazy. Thank you for agreeing to help me today.”

“Of course! Just consider me at your disposal. With Julian running interference, I'll be your guide.”

“Sounds good to me. Um, speaking of whoever that guy is, where is he? I wanna know what my assistant is like! As a former one, I have expectations for him to live up to.”

Nia glanced at the empty assistant's desk as they went into Kara's office and shrugged. “Dunno. He'll show though. It's weird. He has the best timing. It's always exactly when you need him.”

Kara put her bag down and hung up her coat before turning back to her, looking around to make sure they were alone, and whispered, “Hey, um, d-did you know that Lena can speak Kryptonese?”

She couldn't stop replaying the moment in her head. Lena's plush lips on her skin...whispering encouragement in near perfect Kryptonese... It felt so... _normal_. But not a human normal, just normal for someone who grew up on Krypton. Even in her most imaginative daydreams, she never allowed herself to come up with something as wonderful as that. It would have hurt more than anything else because she knew that kind of life would never exist for her.

Except...now it did. In this new, but so oddly _right_ , life she led.

“Did I know that your genius, billionaire, polyglot wife added an alien language to her repertoire in all 2 seconds of her spare time...” Nia stopped and sighed. “Actually, I was going for sarcastic on that, but I just couldn't do it. Yes, I know! It's so sweet. She was determined to learn as much as she could before you guys got married. We once caught you two using it at game night to cheat. _Huge_ fiasco. Alex wouldn’t speak to either of you for a week.”

“We would never cheat!”

“You literally don’t remember it so you can’t say that.”

“I know I would never cheat!”

“Maybe being married to a Luthor has lured you to the dark side.” Nia wiggled her eyebrows.

Kara was not amused.

“Ugh. You’re no fun. But what’s the freak out about Lena knowing your language? You were so happy you cried when she said your vows in Kryptonese as a surprise.”

Kara did not have an answer for that. And now she was picturing Lena on their wedding day and seeing the way her lips wrapped around the sacred words, hearing the accent she would have in trying to pronounce the harder ones, the way her native tongue would roll off Lena’s tongue...

“Nia Nal to Kara Danvers. Kara Danvers, if you have functioning brain cells left, please respond.”

It was enough to jar her out of the daydream and she looked at Nia strangely as she pretended to speak into a microphone.

“Ah. There you are. Good. Worried I lost you to another Lena coma. Seriously, those are so inconvenient. I don’t know how you function on a daily basis.”

“A what now?”

She ignored her. “You have a regular scheduled meeting with BB first thing on Tuesday mornings. She'll be here any moment.” Nia led Kara to the desk and had to give her a little push before she let herself sit in the chair.

“Oh, this is so wrong...” she whined in a hushed whisper, staring at Nia with wide eyes. “It feels like I'm breaking a law!”

“It's a chair, Kara,” she replied flatly. “You own the company.”

“So they keep telling me, but it doesn't make it any easier to get used to.”

“Focus!” Nia snapped her fingers and Kara sat up straight, nodding seriously. “Just let BB talk herself into everything and approve it at the end. You totally trust her to make the right decisions, she just likes to process things out loud.”

“Let her talk and approve at the end. Easy enough. One question: who’s BB?”

“Our Editor-in-Chief.”

“What happened to Snapper? We didn’t get him back after Andrea’s disastrous takeover?”

“I’m not sure.” Nia walked around to the opposite side of the desk. “Lena was pretty set against it. She loathed him. You said he made you a better reporter, but Lena was adamant that there were better ways to motivate someone than to degrade, insult, diminish, and verbally abuse. You guys debated it a lot and then one day you announced to us all that BB was the new Editor. I have no idea what changed your mind, but BB is _amazing_ and I’m so glad Lena won the fight because when I handed in one of my first stories for Catco, Snapper ripped me to pieces so badly that I didn’t change out of my pajamas for 4 days.”

“That’s...a pretty fair reaction,” she admitted, but was still focused on the fact that she was sitting in this chair.

 _The_ chair.

There might as well have been a kryptonite laced bomb planted underneath it for how it felt.

“Oh, here she comes!” Nia turned back and groaned in exasperation. “Kara!” she admonished. “You have _got_ to relax otherwise you're gonna make everyone feel super weird.”

A tall Black woman dressed head to toe in hot pink stopped at a desk outside the office and seemed to be either happily congratulating Kevin or ripping Kevin a new one, Kara couldn’t tell by her enthusiastic hand gestures. She looked up at Nia in bewilderment.

“ _That’s_ the woman I hired to be our Editor?”

“Yep!”

“She looks like she stepped out of the Barbie Dream House - business style, 80s edition.”

“Isn’t it fantastic?”

“She has poodles on her heels.”

“She loves dogs?”

Kara gawked at the scene happening outside of her office. Nia came back around and patted her on the shoulder reassuringly.

“You got this. Don't worry. BB is basically the Elle Woods of the editorial world and utterly fabulous!” Nia squealed excitedly. “You love her, I promise! I'll come back when you guys are done.”

BB seemed to be done with Kevin and Kara wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead. Or how she felt about it. Nia slipped out the door with none the wiser.

“Miss Danvers, so glad to see you back in!” BB strode in with her purse on her arm and pulled out a hot pink file that flawlessly matched her outfit before placing her purse carefully on the couch. “You were sorely needed yesterday, but we can’t all be Supergirl, can we? Instead we must be Superwomen and we carry on!” She handed her the file with flourish.

Every alarm bell in her head went off.

 _Was this woman supposed to know her identity? How could she know? Why would they tell her? If she didn’t know then why would she say that..._ _No, it was totally a joke. She didn't know. She couldn't. Nia would have warned her.  
_

Kara stared up at her blankly until BB, seeming a little concerned, waved the folder again and got her attention.

“Oh, yes!” Kara took the file. "Of course. Sorry, go on.”

_Had to be a joke._

“Here’s what I’ve worked out for the next three editions.”

“Three?” she echoed in disbelief. "That's like…five months of work in advance."

“Okay, you caught me.” She grimaced. “I have the next six editions planned. You really do know me well, Miss Danvers. But I swear I have been trying to take your advice on slowing down a bit. It’s just…” she sighed, “a work in progress.”

Kara blinked.

“Now, if anything doesn’t feel right, I do have my back ups, of course.” She pulled out another file about 3 times thicker than the first, tapping her acrylic nails on it as she waited.

Kara opened the brief, flipping through, becoming more and more impressed with each page. “Wow, this is—”

“Horrible! You hate it. I knew it.” BB snatched the file out of a bewildered Kara’s hands. “We’ll trash it. Forget that happened.”

“I hated it?”

“Yes, of course you did. How could you not? It looks like we’re playing at amateur hour. No. Unacceptable.” She handed her the next folder. “I’m so sorry, let’s try Plan B. See if that’s any better.”

Kara was a little nervous to open it this time, but BB was peering down at her with such scrutiny that she felt like she better move fast or she wouldn’t even get to see what’s in this one. She went through the pages speedily, but still a human speed, and something caught her eye.

“Is that…is that supposed to be an article on Lena and me? ...With a 4-page spread?!”

“Certainly! Your anniversary gala is next month.”

‘ _Anniversary gala_?’ Kara mouthed to herself in disbelief.

Seriously, what kind of life was she leading?

“I know how Miss Luthor despises being in the spotlight, but this is my one opportunity every year to give our readers a glimpse into the lives of two of the most powerful women in the country, if not the world, and you know I won’t miss it.”

“Nia is interviewing us?” she asked, noting the byline placeholder.

“As you requested. But, if you like, there are hundreds of reporters that would leap at the chance…”

“No, no, Nia should write it. That’s totally fine. I just don’t…” she trailed off for a moment and then looked up at the woman. “Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah. I mean, wha-what’s so interesting about Lena and me that we would need to be interviewed for a _national_ publication…” she forced a nervous chuckle through her teeth, “…that’s translated in 20 different countries?”

"32 countries," BB corrected, looking entirely perplexed. “And because it’s the best opportunity to shine a light on all the philanthropy you and Miss Luthor have been working on? It’s why you started hosting it 3 years ago. The gala is one of the most exclusive, sought-after events of the year that raises hundreds of millions in one evening for a number of charities and funding for medical research. You know all of that, Miss Danvers, obviously, but am I to take this to mean you’ve changed your mind about the feature?”

“Oh, um...” Kara puffed out her cheeks as she rebelled against her every instinct to say yes, cancel it, shut it down. There’s no way it could possibly be a good idea to splash pictures of herself and Lena with an intimate interview in the middle of Catco magazine. But she stopped herself, remembering Nia’s advice. “No, it’s fine. Of course, I’m-- _we’re_ \--doing the interview. Because that’s what we agreed to. Apparently.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

“And this is fantastic work. I think we should definitely go ahead with—"

“No. It’s hideous. Absolutely not.” BB yanked the folder away, tossing it clear across the room while she strode towards her bag to pull out an absolute monster sized looking brief – still the same shade of hot pink as the rest. “I don’t know what I was thinking even letting you see that.” She shook her head. “Here. This should do it.” She dropped the next one in front of Kara with an audible thump on the desk.

Kara openly gaped at her, certain that she shouldn’t be making any sudden movements. BB didn’t seem to notice as she glanced at her wristwatch.

“Well? Come now, Miss Danvers!” She clapped her hands with a keen gaze. “You don’t have all day to meet with me. There’s a thousand more important things for you to do and I would hate to waste any more of your valuable time.”

Kara gulped and nodded, almost too scared to open it at this point, but started to go through what was apparently Plan C.

Were they going to go through the whole alphabet?

After BB left her office, just as perky and energetic as when she’d entered, Kara felt like she’d just gone four rounds with someone well outside her weight class. She certainly understood why she hired her now though. Snapper Carr was a, well, _snapper_ , next to BB’s Blue whale.

Still in a daze from the meeting, someone used the opportunity to stick box of the most incredible looking doughnuts under her nose. Kara gasped delightedly, snatching it as though she might have to fight people off to keep it. When she opened the box, the mouthwatering scent of the freshly made confections wafted over her and she was halfway to heaven.

“And your mid-morning latte, Miss Danvers.” A short young man with fair skin and meticulously coiffed dark hair placed a steaming cup of coffee next to her on the desk. “Don't worry, I bought a backup dozen in case you're feeling extra peckish today. Just let me know.”

Kara would have thanked him, but she'd already shoved half a doughnut in her mouth. As far as she was concerned though, he had just made one of the best first impressions she'd experienced.

“Julian! There you are.” Nia walked into the office with a smile but got distracted by the sight of the box of doughnuts in front of Kara. “Oooooh, those look amazing.”

Kara was about to tell her to get her own, though it would have been unintelligible due to the second doughnut already in her mouth, but it turned out she didn't need to.

Julian stepped between them. “Absolutely not, Miss Nal! Do you feel like losing a hand today?”

She rolled her eyes. “You are so bad at sharing, Kara.”

“Mmpphh!” was all she managed to reply. Third doughnut gone.

“Is there anything else I can do for you right now, Miss Danvers? I tried to make your lunch reservation as usual, but Hector called and said that Miss Luthor had a conflict today. That hasn't happened in over seven months, which is worrisome, but I'm sure you two are fine, right?”

“Julian!” Nia chided, elbowing him pointedly. “Of course they're fine. God, do you ever think before you speak?”

“Thinking is overrated. Actions speak louder than words anyway.”

Kara chuckled, finally taking a break long enough to speak clearly after she polished off her fifth doughnut. “Interesting perspective for someone who's supposed to be doing nothing but thinking of my needs as my assistant.”

“You've kept me around this long.” He shrugged. “Can't be that bad at it, right?”

“I can see it's gone to your head.” Kara pushed her glasses back more securely on her nose. “We might have to reevaluate.”

Nia snickered behind her hand.

Julian sighed. “Understood, Miss Danvers. What shall I do for lunch with your wife then? I bet she'd like to try that new Vietnamese place that's been all the rage. What time should I have it delivered to L-Corp?”

“Didn't you just say Lena was too busy for lunch today?” she replied distractedly with her mouth full of the 6th doughnut.

His eyes doubled in size and he clutched his chest as if he were a 50s housewife clutching her pearls. Nia started waving wildly behind him, mouthing 'no' in a panic, but Kara didn't understand what the heck was wrong with the two of them.

“You're _not_ going to have lunch with Miss Luthor? Oh, dear God. I...I should have gotten more doughnuts! And ice cream! I should have gotten _so much_ ice cream.” He looked near tears. “My sincerest apologies, Miss Danvers. I didn't know! And I was being so flip... I am a terrible human being.”

Apparently Kara had just sent her assistant into a nervous breakdown within 3 minutes of meeting him. She was competing against Cat Grant's record.

Nia came to her rescue though, throwing her arm around Julian's shoulders as he continued to spiral. “No! It's okay. You remember what Lena said about how she might be _acting_ today right...” she trailed off with an exaggerated jerk of her head towards Kara and gesturing various signs of crazy. “Thank God she has you. Can you imagine what Lena Luthor would do if her wife didn't show up for their lunch? You're Kara's saving grace! Now go place that order and...please don't put her on the phone with anyone important today.”

“Right, of course, you're absolutely right.” Julian took a deep, calming breath. “So sorry. I shouldn't have reacted like that. I know better.” He looked at Kara with all the sympathy one would muster for an injured child. “Don't you worry about a thing, Miss Danvers. I have it all in hand. Your lunch will arrive at L-Corp at 1pm. I know you usually like to walk, but on this occasion, I would really like to have a car take you today.”

“I guess that would be fine?”

He looked so relieved, Kara might as well have saved his life by saying 'fine'.

She waited until he left the office before turning to Nia expectantly.

Nia sighed heavily, hand over her heart. “That was so close. Jesus, Kara. You're going to be the death of that boy. He worships you and Lena. If you two ever broke up, I think it would honestly shatter him.”

“It's one lunch... Why would that be enough for him to start needing a padded room?”

Nia tilted her head fondly. “You and Lena are the cutest. You have lunch together every day without fail. If Lena's too busy to leave the office, you always just go straight to her. Occasionally she comes to Catco just to shake it up a bit. You say you're adamant about lunch because she forgets to eat if you're not there so you're just looking out for her, but I think you mostly like being able to have that mini-date break with all that you guys deal with between Catco, L-Corp, and occasionally saving the world.”

“Oh.”

“You really don't remember anything, do you?”

“Apparently not.”

It was all she could do to keep her voice level.

“I don't know how Lena's dealing with it...” Nia gave her a pitying look. “Never mind, I'm sure it'll all work out! But don't do that to Julian again. He puts on a tough act, but he's a sweetheart deep down.”

“I won't?”

It was probably inappropriate to be so grateful to hear a police siren at that moment, but Kara was positively overjoyed. Finally! Something she knew how to do and it wouldn't be filled with all the distressing pieces of her life that she didn't know anything about. Plus, she could escape this increasingly unsettling conversation.

“Oh well! Duty calls! Gotta go. You know the drill. Be back in a jiff.”

Nia looked confused. “Wait, really? What happ--”

Kara ran out of the office before she could finish.

* * *

It was almost noon and Kara was feeling more off kilter than ever. She thought being able to put on the suit and be Supergirl for a little while would let her forget all the new, overwhelming things she was discovering about her life as Kara Danvers. It was supposed to be her reprieve! Her one solace that she could count on. Punch bad guys into the stratosphere! But no.

She'd made five separate attempts to swoop into different emergency scenes, but every single stinking time there was already another superhero on the scene that had the situation well in hand. They weren't faster than Kara, but they did have the heads-up advantage from the DEO. Every time she showed up, not only did the heroes look surprised, but so did the police, the firemen, the paramedics, and even the bad guys! An attempted arsonist that was getting put in handcuffs apparently found her presence galling. “Supergirl? What the hell are you doing wasting your time on me? There's a fucking civil war about to break out in Kaznia right now. Shame on you!”

Kara was so flustered that she just flew away since there was a costumed metahuman on the scene working with the firefighters as they located where the would-be arsonist had planted charges.

Supergirl was apparently no longer needed in National City.

After the fifth failed attempt to do _some_ kind of heroism, Alex called her and begged her to stop interrupting other people while they saved the day.

“You have a job, Kara! Go do it.”

Absolutely indignant, she all but stamped her foot. “Is this your way of telling me I’m obsolete? Cause that's what it feels like, Alex. It's not retirement when you've been forced out!”

“No one is forcing you out," she replied tiredly. "National City is well protected now because of all the work you've put in over the years, but yes, they don't need you at every robbery or pile up. You have to trust me, when something happens that only you can do or that we'll need all hands on deck for, we will call you. Otherwise, just go enjoy life as Kara Danvers, media mogul.”

“That is so unbelievably weird, you know that, right?”

“I've had time to get used to it.”

“Well, what about this Kaznian civil war?” She tried, knowing that this was sounding way more desperate than necessary. “I heard about it from— Uh. I heard it on the news. Can't I do something about that? Isn't there a dictator I could punch? Or maybe glare at really menacingly?”

“Diana is already handling that one,” Alex replied distractedly. “Diplomacy is more of her thing.”

“What? Who's Diana?”

“A friend. Kara, please! I have work to do. Just go back to Catco. We have it handled. Stop interfering.”

“Excuuuuuse me for caring,” she muttered.

They ended the call at the same time.

As frustrated as Kara was, every hero she met so far today – though they already all knew her – appeared to be doing a great job and everyone had been so incredibly nice to her, even though she was clearly not needed. She couldn't find a way to be mad at them for taking her job.

Resigned, she went back to the office and reined in her every instinct to take flight at the sound of distress. She reminded herself of what Alex said and did her best to try and trust that if there was something she was truly needed for, either Alex would call her or Kara would be able to hear the difference between something the locals could handle and something that only Supergirl could do.

So she focused being CEO and it was...honestly harder than being Supergirl. Kara decided she would rather carry a submarine on her back for a week than sit through another budget planning meeting and walked out of there plotting all the ways she could avoid ever doing that again. Surely there had to be a way to 'delegate' that particular task.

She spent about ten minutes alternating between staring into space and staring at her cell phone, which Lena had found for her last night, while drumming on the desk with her fingernails. Finally, she swallowed the nerves, and picked up the phone.

Lena answered on the first ring. “Kara, is everything alright? Did something happen?”

“No, no, nothing’s wrong. I mean, nothing that we didn’t already know, anyway. Same old problems as this morning.”

The tiny sigh of relief on the other end would have been undetectable if it wasn’t for Kara’s hearing.

“It’s actually…going better than I expected,” she admitted. “It’s weird and I still think Miss Grant is going to walk in here and have me decapitated for sitting at her desk, but it’s not the impending disaster I thought it would be.”

Lena chuckled quietly and the throatiness of it made Kara feel something she really could not fathom putting into words at the moment.

“I did have a reason for calling though.”

“Of course. How can I help?”

Kara smiled despite herself. “No, it’s not… I was only wondering… Well, are you free for lunch?”

Lena was strangely silent. The courage that Kara had summed up was rapidly depleting.

“I-I just didn’t want to impose,” she continued. “Your assistant said you were busy, but Julian seemed to think I should still… Well, he got weirdly upset and acted like we were breaking up if we didn’t have lunch. Which is crazy, right? Silly. It’s just… _lunch_.”

“Julian is a nosy busybody,” Lena sniffed, “and if he wasn’t so exceptionally good at anticipating your needs, you would have fired him on day one.”

“I’m getting that same feeling.”

They both fell silent this time.

“So…” Kara leaned forward nervously, “a-are you busy today?”

“I do have a lot going on…” she conceded, hesitating slightly, “but we usually meet in my office when it gets like this.”

“Then you did want to cancel because of me? Because of the _situation_?”

“It's not like that, Kara. I simply thought that after yesterday and this morning, you've been forced to spend a lot of time with me and I figured perhaps you could use some space. I can't imagine how overwhelmed you must be feeling.”

“I haven't been forced into anything with you,” she insisted. “Besides, we really should keep things as normal as possible...so I won't have to call in a medical team to sedate Julian.”

“Right," Lena drawled. "Wouldn’t want that happen."

“And...I'd like to see you,” she confessed, feeling the blush creep up her cheeks as she said it. “We could talk more about _us_ o-or nothing about us if you're tired of that. We have so many things we could talk about. Like are Harry and Meghan still together? Did the Queen take away their titles? Did they vote that jerk out of the White House? Did T-Swift get married? Oh! Did Frank Ocean finally release a new album?! Alex wouldn't tell me.”

“Google still exists, you know.”

“Huh. Forgot about that.”

“Perhaps I should check for signs of cognitive degeneration later. Another symptom, perhaps?”

“Oh, _funny._ I'll be there at one. We're having Vietnamese.”

“Oh, from the new place?” Lena sounded pleased. “I've been wanting to try it.”

“Really? What a coincidence.”

“All right. Have it your way, Kara.” She could hear the smile in her voice even over the phone. “I'll see you at one.”

After they ended the call, Kara put the phone down on her desk, feeling immensely pleased with herself and didn’t really understand why. She just knew she couldn’t wipe the dopey grin off her face for a while, not even when Julian told her that, no, Frank Ocean still hadn’t released any new music.

* * *

Another day passed. Then it was two. Kara was oddly getting used to the routine, but there was still no lead on what had happened to her or why she couldn’t remember such a large, but specific chunk of her life. Alex and Brainy were working around the clock. Though Lena seemed to be carrying on as usual, Kara knew she was likely spending a lot of time in the L-Corp lab working in tandem with them. On the upside, things with Lena were getting less awkward. It was almost starting to feel like what it used to be when they were best friends before…everything.

Sure, there was still the whole marriage thing, which was strange, but of course Kara wore her wedding band every day. There was no sense in taking it off when all that would do is hurt Lena’s feelings. Besides, if she made those vows, it didn’t matter whether or not she could remember them at this particular moment, they still counted, and she would honor them. She would honor Lena. Always.

The worst part right now was, really, the severe lack of sleep they were both suffering. Kara usually didn’t need that much sleep on average, but she hadn’t slept well since waking up in this new world and she knew Lena wasn’t sleeping either. She heard her tossing and turning in the other room every night. Even though Lena was an expert on covering the dark circles under her eyes, she still couldn’t hide the toll lack of sleep was taking on her. They didn’t talk about it though. Kara had a feeling that, deep down, she knew the answer to the problem, but it wasn’t something she was prepared to admit. It was too much. She wasn’t ready to broach it.

Yet.

* * *

It was another busy day for L-Corp so instead of meeting at a restaurant like they’d done the past two days, Kara was meeting Lena at her office again. She didn’t mind where it was. She liked these breaks in the middle of the day, however brief, to sit down with Lena and just…talk. It was one of the things she’d missed the most since their rift.

They didn’t really talk about Supergirl-in-action things, probably because Kara had been forced into retirement (no matter what Alex said!), but they did talk about Kara Zor-El. Conversations that had usually been about life growing up with the Danvers and Kara’s day job now included casual comments and offhand remarks about Krypton, the House of El, Kara’s parents, her true childhood, and never did she have to say a single word of untruth. Lena knew everything about her and there was such an intimate relief and ease to it all. In her wildest dreams, never did she think it could be like this.

Kara grinned at Hector as she walked by and he smiled back with an approving nod, which usually meant that Lena was alone in her office. Except this time she wasn’t.

“Oh, sorry!” she said awkwardly. “I didn't realize you were busy. I can come back?”

Lena and the young woman stopped their conversation, facing her with similar expressions of amusement. She felt something tug at her memory and inhaled sharply, wondering if this was it, the hint of her missing memories showing some sign that they still existed.

“Wait a minute...I know you. How do I know you?”

The woman rolled her eyes. “I swear, you get cheesier every year, Kara.”

Lena hastily interjected. “ _Ruby_ , it's not nice to tease senior citizens. Where is that busy mother of yours, _Sam_?”

Kara's eyes doubled in size when it clicked. “Ruby Arias?” she exclaimed, several octaves above usual. “Oh my... You are beautiful! Y-you're a whole...adult!” She wrapped her in a bear hug before stepping back. “And tall! Goodness. You're...” she caught Lena's reproving gaze and realized that she was not supposed to react like this, “...exactly like you have been for a while now because you are...a woman and I am _not at all_ surprised. How old are you?”

Lena covered her eyes in exasperation.

Kara couldn't help it. The last time she saw this girl, she was an adorable 12-year-old who was over the moon to have her amazing mom back. Now she was a full-blown woman, several inches taller than Kara and nothing short of gorgeous. Sam’s daughter, indeed.

Ruby seemed amused for the most part, along with a tad bit concerned. “I'm 21, Kara. You guys were just at the party and gave me a car for my present. Remember?”

Kara looked around her, gaping at Lena. “We gave her a _car_? Like a _real_ one?”

“Yes, and without her mother's approval to boot,” another voice chimed in behind them.

Of course she knew that voice. Kara turned around and there was Sam Arias, glowing and perfect as always.

“Sam!” She couldn't help it. She threw herself into the woman's arms happily.

“I missed you too, Kara.” She laughed fondly.

“Don't tell me you're still ticked off about the car, Samantha _,_ ” Lena teased. “We let you give her the apartment.”

“Oh, you _let me_ , did you?”

After Kara released her, Sam made her way over to Lena and embraced her as well.

“Someone has to spoil her,” Kara said with a shrug, looking at Lena. “Isn't that right?”

She was getting better at this pretend game - where she played the part of Lena's wife. Sometimes it would come so naturally that Kara surprised herself.

“Exactly right,” Lena replied with a twinkle in her eye and put on an exaggerated look of innocence. “Don't begrudge us for loving her so much.”

“I certainly don't!” Ruby chirped.

“You two are a disaster. Wait 'til you have your own. Then it's payback time.”

Kara promptly went mute. Lena blushed, but tried to be more subtle about it. Sam showed no mercy, but it was Ruby that came to their rescue.

“Mom, you're being cruel. Plus, you have an unfair advantage. I think Kara's been day drinking.”

“I have not!” she protested, indignant.

Sam stifled her laughter with her fist. “Really? _Kara Danvers_? What makes you say that?”

“She's being even more of dork than usual and I didn't think that was possible.”

“I see how it is.” Kara gestured between the two of them. “You've taken after your mother too much. I'll have you know that, once upon a time, she liked me. I'm sure of it.” She looked at Sam. “And it's not my fault that my wife insisted on a car. You know what she's like! How was I going to stop her?”

“Fine,” Sam sniffed, lifting her chin in mock indignation. “You're right. I'll blame it all on Lena.”

“For God's sake. Is this what dinner is going to be like?” Lena rolled her eyes. “Because if it is, my assistant can tell you that I'm coming down with a possible bout of the flu.” She fake-coughed pointedly.

“No canceling,” Ruby said warningly. “You've already rescheduled on us twice.”

“Very well, I suppose you have me in a bind. I'll just suffer through Sam's withering glares all evening.”

Sam grinned. “Damn right you will.”

Hector knocked, sticking his head in. “I'm sorry to interrupt, but your lunch order has arrived Miss Luthor. Would you like me to bring it in?”

“Yes, please!” Kara answered for her without hesitation.

As he promptly ran out, hurrying to meet Kara's enthusiastic request, the other three women just looked at her.

“What? I'm hungry. You guys act like you've never met me.”

Sam and Ruby both shook their heads in amusement, looking so much like mother and daughter that it warmed Kara's heart.

“Okay, I know we've taken up a lot of your time already,” Sam said laughingly. “We just dropped by to say hi and I wanted to check in with some of the department heads. We'll see you tonight though?”

The two of them started to move towards the door.

“Absolutely,” Lena replied. “Seven on the dot.”

“See you then!” Ruby smiled. “And no more drinking, Kara. You're not as young as you used to be.”

“I wasn't--!”

But Ruby just laughed as she walked out with Sam. Kara spun around with her mouth wide open in shock.

“I know,” Lena said. “Amazing, isn't it?”

“That 6-foot-tall model is the baby-faced Ruby Arias that we know and love?”

Hector quietly laid out lunch for them on the table by the couch and closed the door behind him, leaving them alone.

“She's incredible. She's already gotten her undergrad and she's in medical school. Pretty sure Alex was the inspiration behind that one.”

“Is she at NatCU?”

“Nope, Stanford. We send the jet for her sometimes when she has a long weekend and beg her to stay with us so we can spoil her more. She's utterly brilliant and her work ethic is impeccable.”

Kara smiled. “Just like her mom then.”

“Yes, and that is exactly why you will not be going to dinner with us tonight. I'll make up a very heartfelt apology on your behalf.”

“What? No!” Kara cried, crestfallen. “ _Lena_ , don't do this to me! I wanna be there and--”

“They'll know something's up if you spend more than 5 minutes with them right now. Sam is one of the sharpest people I know and her daughter takes after her.”

“Apparently not if she thinks I was day drinking,” Kara grumbled, fiddling with her glasses.

Lena raised an eyebrow. “You're lucky she loves you enough to find your obliviousness charming. But there's no way you can fake it through an entire meal. It's six years of friendship and six years of Ruby's life that you don't remember, Kara. Do you really think it's the best idea? How are we going to explain it? Other than alcoholism or some other substance abuse,” she said dryly.

“But-but I just want to _talk_ and hear about their lives!” she whined, pouting. “I miss them so much. I haven't seen them since they left for Metropolis after Reign.”

“Technically, you have, but you don't remember it.” She rubbed her arms consolingly. “There will be other dinners, I promise. And by then you'll have all your memories back and you will be able to carry on a conversation without either of them thinking you've completely lost your mind.”

“I guess you're right...” Kara groused. “But still, did you see her? Lena! That elegant, well-spoken, supermodel used to be little 12-year-old Ruby!”

“Yes, darling, I saw her. I know.” She shook her head in amusement and led Kara over to the couch so they could finally eat.

“Sooooo...does she still like Supergirl or is she too old for that now?”

“You are not crashing dinner as Supergirl,” she said flatly.

“ _Lena_...” she whined.

“Absolutely not. I forbid it.”

Kara peered at her suspiciously. “Is that really how our marriage works?”

“Completely.”

“Liar.”

“ _Do not_ come as Supergirl, Kara. I'm serious.”

“Fine.”

“Kara!”

“What? Okay. _Okay_. I promise. I will not come to dinner as either Kara Danvers or Supergirl.”

“Thank you.”

They started eating in silence and Kara pouted sadly through each bite.

Lena chuckled incredulously. “You and your puppy dog eyes. The most powerful person on Earth and this is what you resort to every time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hm. Nice try. It might have worked on me in the early days, but I have built up an immunity to that pout, Kara Zor-El.”

“I just can't believe that you won't...” she trailed off in a mumble, taking another sad bite.

“Christ, you're the embodiment of a child who had their toy taken away.”

“You're a mean wife.”

Lena put her food down abruptly, and for a moment Kara was worried that she'd taken the teasing too far, but then she felt a firm hand sliding up the inside of her thigh and Lena's breath on her throat as she pressed herself pointedly against her side.

“Are you... _absolutely_ certain of that?” Lena murmured seductively against her ear before dropping a kiss to her neck.

And she could swear... _swear_ that she felt the lightest brush of Lena's tongue against her skin. Kara promptly dropped the entire contents of her lunch down her front.

Unfazed, Lena pulled away, sitting up properly, and picked up her container again as she took another bite of her unspoiled food. “There's a change of clothes in the closet,” she said smoothly. “Don't worry about the mess. I'll have it taken care of.”

Kara stared at her, breathing hard, while Lena just kept eating innocuously, not bothering to look at her.


	4. Chapter 4

After the day ended, Kara left Catco without much idea of what to do. Lena was working late and going directly to dinner with Sam and Ruby from the office. Nia had tickets to a concert with old friends. She offered to blow it off if Kara wanted to hang, but Kara insisted she go ahead with her plans as usual. Without many options, she hoped Alex would be available and headed for the DEO. But when she got there, they told her that Director Danvers had already left. So had Agent Dox. That was a little strange considering it was still early in the workday. Alex never left work early - they were usually just lucky if she left on time. Curious, she called and it turned out Alex was already toiling away in Lena’s lab.

She left work...only to go do more work.

Well, Kara felt reassured that at least not that much about her sister had changed even if the rest of the world had.

“Pick up some pizza and meet me there.”

Kara made a face even though Alex couldn’t see it. “You want to have dinner in the lab?”

“No, your house, you goof. I’ll meet you outside.”

Her house. With Lena.

Did that ever get old?

Alex was leaning against a motorcycle in the circular driveway as Kara touched down.

“Took you long enough.”

“I’m sorry! They gave my order to someone else. How do you have the keys to the lab, but not my house?”

“I have restricted access to the lab,” she corrected. “And the house is...complicated. Lena is really serious about protecting you guys, which I am exceedingly grateful for, but it means I can't just drop by and water your plants.”

“Why not?”

“Well, to start, your force field would knock me out cold.”

“She has a _force field_?”

“Yeah, give me your phone.”

Kara handed it to her while she used X-Ray vision suss out some sign of this apparent force field, but nothing showed. She felt queasy.

“It's bio-tech so it responds based on physiology,” Alex explained. “You and Lena can walk through it without feeling a thing, but if you want to have a guest, you need to grant them temporary access.”

“So the force field doesn't kill them?”

“It's non-lethal." She scoffed. "Seriously, Kara. As if Lena would ever do that nor would you ever agree to it. Don't be ridiculous.” She held up the phone to show her what she needed to do and they made their way inside.

Alex was clearly as used to being there as she was at Kara's old apartment, because she grabbed plates, napkins, and beer with practiced ease, knowing exactly where everything was – unlike Kara.

They settled on the couch with two boxes of pizza, a beer for Alex, and water for her.

“Hey." She pointed to the bottle in Alex’s hand. "I don’t get one?”

She rolled her eyes. “Give it up. The cat’s long out of the bag."

Kara was confused.

"You hate beer," she elaborated.

“What? No, I don’t!”

“Uh, _yeah_ , you do. You admitted it while under the influence of some Mringian wine.”

“Mringian?” The name sounded vaguely familiar. “As in Mringa, the planet with the fires and people with a passion for all things dance?”

“The same. They're obsessed with you there. Gave you a lifetime supply of wine as thanks for _just you being you_.” She snickered.

Kara didn't know how to respond to that. “But I--"

“You hate the taste of beer. It was a night of revelations when you first tried that wine. I learned more things about you than I ever really wanted to know... Anyway, you told us that you've always hated it, but drank it because you wanted to fit in. Seem more human somehow." She shrugged. "At first, I was upset that you felt like you had to keep up the charade for so long, then it turned into me feeling super guilty cause it’s _the_ most classic case of peer pressure so how did I not realize that, right? But you talked me out of the shame cycle. And I get why you did it. Really, I do. Besides, Lena hates it too. I think that made it easier for you to come clean.”

“Okay, wait, so if you know that I…actually _don’t_ love beer so much…” she eyed Alex guiltily to which she only smiled and poked her playfully, “and Lena doesn’t like it, then why is there a six pack in the fridge?”

She faked indignation. “Uh, because I exist and you love me?”

Kara laughed and they toasted with her glass of water and Alex’s beer. It was all so normal and hardly changed that Kara could almost forget the strangeness of her new world. Alex would always be her sister and they would always be able to find their way back to moments like this. She could have even believed that the dream had ended and she was in her apartment again telling Alex all about it. They would laugh until tears at the idea of Kara marrying Lena Luthor and being a media mogul.

But Alex’s hair was too long.

The couch was too big.

And this house was certainly not her loft.

This was not the world she knew.

After a few moments of silence where Kara tore through her first slice of pizza and Alex searched for the remote, she couldn’t hold it back any longer.

“I thought I was straight.”

A testament to Alex’s character, or perhaps just how well she knew Kara, she didn’t so much as flinch.

“I thought you were too,” she replied simply.

In truth, Alex probably anticipated this conversation from the moment Kara whispered a confession that she might, bafflingly, be _dating_ Lena. Instead of looking at her though, Alex found the remote that was tucked between the couch cushions and turned on the large flat screen mounted on the wall and started flipping through apps to find a movie.

Kara was almost finished with her second slice by the time Alex took her first bite.

“I didn't know that I could like girls that way. Women, I mean. What changed?”

Alex shrugged, eyes still on the TV. She seemed determined to be as unhelpful as possible in this situation.

She huffed. “Oh, come on! You’re not going to give me anything?”

Sighing, her sister dropped her hands in her lap and turned her head to her. “It’s your story, Kara. Your journey. And…this is one part that really isn’t my place to tell. I don’t think anyone can.”

She mulled that over in silence that while working on the third slice and Alex finished her first.

They still hadn’t decided on what to watch.

“You have to tell me something," she insisted finally. "We must have talked about this."

“Of course we did. We still do.”

“Then…tell!”

“I don’t know what changed for you. I can’t answer that. Only you can. And just because you can’t remember all the steps before you reached this point, doesn’t mean it’s not all still there.”

Kara dropped her half-eaten fourth slice in frustration. She’d already come to that conclusion well enough on her own. What she needed was _more_.

"I feel like I've been dropped in the middle of a movie I've never seen, except it's my own life, and I have no idea what the plot twists are that got me here. I'm... I've been trying _really_ hard to stay calm about all of this, but I don't think--I don't think it's going to keep working for much longer. I need to know. I need to understand. Please."

Alex exhaled, seeming to take pity on her. She didn't rush to speak though, instead remained thoughtful and drawn. Her expression was one Kara knew all too well, it meant she was internally debating what to do next.

“Just say it. I know you’re already thinking something so, whatever it is, say it already."

“I don't think it's right to go into the whole story," she started slowly, "because it's not my place, but I'll tell you some of the things that you've told me. Just promise you won't freak out about it."

"Not sure I can promise that."

" _Okay_ , then...don't shoot the messenger?"

Kara considered it for a beat. "Deal."

Alex shifted so that her whole body was facing her more comfortably and took a deep breath. "Before your first date with Lena, you and I searched the data banks of your mother’s AI program. Turns out...all Kryptonians are pansexual. I mean, that's not the word they used, but you said it was the closest translation of it.”

Kara made a small noise in the back of her throat - curious surprise, but wasn’t really surprised at all. Everything she'd been feeling since she woke up a few days ago pretty much told that story already. “That would explain a lot,” she admitted with a shrug.

Truthfully, she'd been thinking about the subject for far longer than she was willing to say. She usually tried not to think about her childhood on Krypton, but this couldn't be helped. Kara was never given much explanation about sex in a romantic context, only taught the basic biological function as a primitive means for reproduction. And Kryptonians weren't prone to displays of affection, not like humans were. Kryptonians loved fiercely, of course, but there was a greater element of formality to their customs that she knew most humans would view as 'cold'. It was one of hundreds of different customs she had to adapt to when she arrived on Earth. But thinking of Kryptonians as cold was too simplistic and ultimately inaccurate. There was warmth and love everywhere Kara went on Krypton, but it was shown in subtleties that humans would never pick up on. Physical affection was most commonly engaged in with children, but not between adults. Private and public displays between adults were far more complex.

Krypton had dyadic relationships, bonding rituals, arranged unions, even courtship - all things that were familiar to human customs, but only in concept - not in practice. Kara was still too young to understand it all at the time, but she also didn't question it. She felt she knew all that she needed to know. She knew that when her father lingered in a room, gazing at her mother as if there was something to say, but no words spoken...that was love. When her mother would leave for court, she would bid farewell to them both and brush her hand over her father's shoulder as she walked past...that was love.

After Alex came out to her, Kara found herself trying to remember if Krypton had same-sex pairings. It seemed strange that in an evolved society like theirs, this would be missing. Then the memories slowly began to piece together. Flashes of moments and words and faces passed through her mind, seemingly insignificant memories of a child now seen through the lens of adulthood. She remembered her father's two best friends that were bonded - Ahn-Ral and Kann-Mil. So many shared dinners and social gatherings over the years as Kara ran circles around the residence. Whatever their jobs were, it had required a lot of travel for research so they would often bring her trinkets, souvenirs, from their off world voyages. They always made her mother laugh, a rarity for the solemnity of Alura, and for that alone Kara adored them. The presents were a bonus. She remembered thinking how she wanted to have a best friend like that, to go everywhere with, to share everything with someone she loved.

She remembered Kann-Mil mention their daughter once, that the girl was a little older than Kara, and how the adults had laughed when he said that maybe she and Kara would be friends one day. At the time, Kara didn't understand what was so funny about having more friends - it sounded like the most wonderful thing in the world to her. She remembered the look in Ahn-Ral's eyes whenever Kann-Mil spoke. It was the same her father had when he would linger in a room with her mother.

With further introspection, Kara wondered more about Astra's life as well. Her aunt had a number of female friends that would take turns joining her at family gatherings before she met Non. As a child, she just thought her aunt was lucky to have so many friends and hoped to be like her one day. That took on a whole different context now and no wonder her mother had given her that look when she said it.

But these memories were terrifying.

It meant that she'd forgotten. Years passing without a single recollection. These had only been buried, but how much more had she already forgotten about Krypton? More that she wouldn't be able to summon from the recesses. About her family? Her people? Their whole world?

How much would she continue to forget as time went on?

She was the Last Daughter of Krypton and her people deserved so much better than her as their legacy if she couldn't even remember those as important and as loved by her family as Ahn-Ral and Kann-Mil had been.

That same day, she sent a prayer to _Rao_ asking forgiveness for not honoring the memory of those two men who had shown her kindness and brought such joy to her family. She hoped - in _Rao's_ light - that they would forgive her.

Kara was fortunate to have love as a constant in her life, taking different shapes and forms, but romantic love - as defined on Earth - that was different. She never could quite reach the same wavelength that everyone else seemed to be on. But, growing up, Alex didn't have many relationships either, definitely nothing serious, so it made it easier to accept. If someone as amazing as Alex wasn't running around, obsessing about boys, throwing herself headfirst into love and heartbreak, then it couldn't be such a bad thing that Kara wasn't interested in it either.

Except Alex was gay. It turned out she was more than ready to throw herself wholeheartedly into the abyss when she allowed herself to accept having feelings for a woman.

What excuse did Kara have?

“But it doesn't-- I mean, that explains some of it, a lot of it even, but not everything." She ran her fingers through her hair, tugging slightly in frustration. "I still don’t understand why it took me so long to...”

“Experience sexual attraction?”

Kara nodded. She could believe loving Lena enough to marry her and happily spend the rest of her life with her best friend, but the sexual factor... There was a question mark where there should be something else. Something definitive at least. Though, she had to admit, the question mark was rapidly fading after these past few days.

Alex took a sip of her beer, contemplative. “Have you ever wondered why your crush on James deflated so quickly?”

She grimaced. “I mostly try to forget it ever happened. It was seriously awkward.”

“Yeah, it wasn’t great, but for a hot second there you were totally into him. Moony eyes and all.”

“Is it really necessary to humiliate me right now?” She hated thinking about that time. At least she and James were able to stay friends through it. “Yes. Okay. I thought I really liked him. And then, when it was about to happen, I just realized--”

“You weren’t that into him after all..."

Kara shrugged begrudgingly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“...because you also had a massive crush on Lucy Lane,” Alex finished.

She bolted upright like someone had dumped a bucketload of Kryptonite ice down her back and grabbed Alex’s arm in shock.

“Too tight! Too tight!”

“I had a...” she trailed off, eyes widening in realization, and distractedly released her sister’s forearm.

“Damnit,” she muttered. “That’s gonna bruise.”

“I _totally_ had a crush on Lucy!” Kara shouted triumphantly and smacked a throw pillow so hard that feathers exploded in the air. “Duh! How could I not? She was so pretty and smelled amazing and the way she could command a room...”

“Careful, you’re married now.” Alex coughed, unfazed, and tried to wave away the white cloud, but everything was sticking to her.

Kara was oblivious. “I can’t believe it!” she cried. “This explains so much!”

Alex sneezed and Kara absently handed her the box of tissues on the coffee table.

“Right, so it’s always been like this, but you convinced yourself you were straight due to Earth’s heteronormative tendencies.” She paused to blow her nose. The feather dust storm was settling down. “You were already an alien living among humans, why would you want to add anything else that would make you stand out? So you listened to your feelings when you liked a boy and any girls that you liked in the same way, you just considered them good friends. Didn’t question it. Determined to blend in and appear as inconspicuously human as you could. Sound about right?”

Kara slumped back on the couch in disbelief. “More than I ever thought possible. And you...you even explained it like that when you told me you were gay! I _still_ didn’t put it together. Am I really that dense? I know we joke about it, but now it really seems more true than not.”

Alex eyed her sympathetically. “You had a lot more going on, Kara. There were other factors for you. Give yourself a break. Besides, take it from someone who knows, it's incredible what our minds can convince ourselves of with staggeringly little effort.”

She sighed despairingly and Alex patted her head.

“Come on... Stay with me. So the James thing was really a combination of you being into both Lucy and James, which is why it felt so intense for you. The jealousy, the attraction, the slightly obsessive tendencies, all of it. It was them combined, but you didn’t realize the part Lucy was playing in it. When Lucy was out of the picture and it was just you and James...”

“It fizzled,” Kara finished for her knowingly. “Because there weren’t really any strong feelings there to begin with. I knew we were better as friends.”

Alex nodded. “That’s what you told me anyway. You’ve done a lot of self-reflection in the past few years.” She made a long basket toss with the tissue for the waste bin, but it sailed by a yard and she groaned.

Kara didn’t hear it. She was a million miles away. Her attraction to men had always been so mild, and now that included women, but she thought it was because everyone she met was human while she was the alien. Then Mon-El changed it. 

But he didn’t, did he? If she was being completely truthful with herself, it hadn’t been a sexual attraction in the beginning with him either. Or a romantic one even. Whatever it was had slowly worked its way past her defenses. If she was brutally honest, she’d pushed hard to find those feelings in herself for him. He was an echo of Krypton. A distant reflection. It was the closest she'd been to her world since her parents put her in that pod. Once she could grasp it, she could keep those feelings afloat when he was there. Without him...everything went back to the way it used to be and she firmly shut the door behind her.

It was another reason why she believed he was the love of her life. She’d never been able to have a sexual relationship before him and didn’t feel drawn to anyone in the same way after him. Before now, anyway.

For Lena, she always felt everything except that one missing piece of the puzzle. Having to entertain the idea of being sexually attracted to her best friend that she loved so deeply while she had no idea that what she was feeling could be anything other than platonic... Well, if she'd even allowed those thoughts in, it would have destroyed her relationship with Lena and she would have done anything to keep that from happening. Of course she never let herself think like that. Her dreams had other ideas, but those were dreams and easily ignored if you try hard enough.

“Do you think it’s a Kryptonian thing?” she asked quietly. “The reason why I didn’t figure this out earlier?”

“Yes, I do." Alex came back from the kitchen with a towel on her arm and settled down again. "We know it for a fact, actually.”

“Also in the data banks?”

Alex nodded.

“Man, I cannot believe I didn’t study that program more...”

“When your species evolved without needing sex to reproduce, the equivalent of what humans consider a sex drive essentially lies dormant, or latent, in Kryptonians. Your body is basically designed to view sex as recreational rather than a biological imperative.”

Kara frowned. That explained, miserably, why her previous experiences had been so lukewarm and therefore easy to misinterpret. “So I really can’t enjoy sex as much as humans do. Makes sense, I guess.”

Alex grew a bit red in the face and started to fidget. “No, you, ah...you’re fine. All good in that department.”

“But you said—“

“It’s latent, Kara. It just doesn’t appear as urgently the way it does for humans at puberty, but it exists and it’s every bit as intense as humans feel, if not more, from what you’ve told me and I’ve _heard_ ,” she muttered the last bit through gritted teeth and took a deep breath. “You have an absurdly healthy sex life. You’re very active.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “No concerns.”

Kara’s face was redder than Alex’s now.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that’s...that’s good to know. Thank you.”

“No problem.”

“We don’t have to talk about this anymore.”

“Oh thank God.” She downed the rest of her beer.

A long moment passed in silence before Kara pointed at the towel with a furrowed brow.

“Why do you have an ice pack on your arm?”

* * *

An hour later, ‘Enter the Dragon’ was on screen while Kara and Alex were warmly snuggled under a blanket on the couch. After that super awkward but enlightening conversation, they decided a kung fu movie was as far from their reality as they could possibly get and it was exactly what they needed.

“Any leads on those pesky missing memories of mine?”

Bruce Lee was fending off 50 men alone. There was a lot of yelling in Cantonese. It was strangely comforting.

“We’re still waiting on some results for a few tests, but…nothing concrete yet.”

“You don’t even have a working theory? I thought Brainy would have a million of them.”

“He’s… _toned down_ the theories,” she replied carefully.

Kara snorted in amusement. “Lena?”

“Oh yeah.” Alex chuckled. “She ripped him to shreds. He’s terrified, but I gotta admit it’s kind of nice that he’s filtering more before he speaks. I’m enjoying it while it lasts.”

“But what if the tests don’t show anything? What if—”

“We have a plan for that,” Alex cut her off. “Lena's been preparing her lab for a lot of work that we would never be able to do with DEO technology. There’s an answer to this and we’re going to find it. It’s Lena. You know she won’t rest until she figures it out. Neither will I.”

“What if this is just a freak occurrence and I never get my memory back?”

“A freak occurrence where you happened to have six years of memories removed with damn near surgical precision?” Alex shook her head. “This isn’t just happenstance. Whether it’s some kind of physiological reaction, psychological, or if this was done to you by someone or something… We will find the answer and we will fix it. I can’t imagine how hard this is on you, but you just need to be patient. Trust us.”

“You know I trust you.”

After the movie was over, and with repeated assurances from Kara that she was okay to be left alone, Alex kissed the top of her head and left. With nothing else to do, Kara cleaned up the remains of their meal and found herself wandering aimlessly around the house that she apparently called home.

Her home with Lena.

It still didn't quite register that any of this could be real.

* * *

Lena didn't get back until late that evening, a bit wine drunk.

When she came in the door, Kara looked up from her book and watched as Lena kicked off her heels and started tugging at the bun she'd had her hair wound up in. Long, dark locks were freed and fell softly over her shoulder in slight waves.

“You're back.”

She looked up in surprise, seeing Kara on the couch for the first time. “I thought you'd be asleep by now.”

“I...” Kara closed her book and blinked in surprise at her own answer. “I guess I was waiting for you.”

Lena exhaled softly, padding into the kitchen for a glass of water. “You didn't have to.”

“I know.” She got to her feet and found herself leaning against the island a bit awkwardly. “How was dinner with Sam and Ruby?”

“Hm. It was nice. Always good to see them.”

"Did they suspect anything when I didn't show?"

She shrugged. "I had a perfectly plausible explanation, but even with that...they were concerned. I knew they would be. Still, they know better than to press the issue. It's all right. Nothing that can't be fixed."

She sounded so far away.

“Is everything okay?”

Lena peered up at her and Kara saw the exhaustion in her eyes. “Yes, of course,” she replied and came closer to her around the side. “I'm just tired. I haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Me neither,” Kara found herself saying before she could even think about it.

Lena hummed softly, as if she'd expected the answer. If it hadn't been for what was surely a few bottles of wine over dinner, she probably wouldn't have said what she did next.

“It's been a long time since we haven't spent the night together. To be honest, I don't sleep well without you anymore.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “We found that out some time ago when I had some business overseas. I planned to be there for two weeks, but by the end of the first week, we were both so sleep deprived, that you ended up just flying out there every night to sleep in the hotel with me. I wouldn't have made it through the rest of the trip otherwise and you were becoming Nia's narcoleptic twin, falling asleep at your desk.” Her smile was laced with melancholy.

Right then and there, Kara made up her mind. Awkward or not, she wasn't going to be the reason Lena was sleep deprived any further. She'd denied this long enough. Before she could say anything though, Lena leaned in with the lightest pressure of her fingertips on Kara's chest and a brush of her lips against her cheek.

“Goodnight,” she murmured and walked past her, heading up the stairs.

“Wait.”

Lena paused with a slight wrinkle in her brow, looking at her. Kara swallowed apprehensively and closed the distance between them.

“Can I... I mean, would it be all right if I slept in the other bed tonight? Um. Our bed?”

The wrinkle in Lena's brow deepened.

“Oh. I meant _with_ you. If that wasn't clear." Kara rubbed the back of her neck. "I-I wasn't saying we should switch or anything. I just thought maybe...it was something we could try?”

Lena sighed, looking even sadder than she did when she walked in the door, and it killed Kara to see it.

“No, really, it's all right." She waved her off. "I shouldn't have said anything. It was unfair of me. I practically guilt tripped you just now. You know you shouldn't listen to me after I've had too much wine.”

“But--”

“I said no," she interrupted tersely. "It'll just make it worse.”

At that, she turned and continued up the stairs without another word. Kara was left to spin in her confusion. She waited until she heard the bathroom door close and the shower turned on before going back to the couch in defeat. How was she supposed to combat this? She knew that Lena didn't mean it. Not really. But how could she convince her that she truly wanted this too? And not out of obligation. She didn't really know what it was actually, but it wasn't a sense of duty or even friendly compassion. It wasn't any of that.

She wanted to know what it was like to share a bed with Lena. It was as if her body knew something that her mind didn't because every instinct told her that the awful restlessness of past few nights wouldn't be there again if Lena was beside her. If she could feel her weight on the other side, the slightest dip and rise of the bed with each breath, to be able to smell her, to feel her warmth...

Kara covered her face in disbelief and tried to take deep, calming breaths. Maybe she shouldn't be pushing so hard for this. She still knew so little about the life she lived now and remembered nothing, even if her body seemed to have some kind of sense memory that her mind lacked. Or had it always been there and she'd just ignored it?

When did this happen? When did she start associating this feeling of warmth, the same that she felt under the yellow sun, with Lena as well? She loved her friend and it made her heartsick when she saw the torment she'd caused her. The lies. The betrayal. Lena never deserved to feel pain like that and it destroyed Kara to know that she'd been the cause. She'd always convinced herself that she would be Lena's champion. Then somehow, slowly then all at once, Kara became the enemy, along with all the rest in Lena's life, and her worst fear came true – she lost her.

But Lena came back. She came back to Kara and she apologized. She helped take down Lex and Lillian. She protected Kara's identity. She kept her safe when she was using the Obsidian lenses. She made her a Kryptonite suit.

Things were uncomfortable between them, but they'd reached a truce. An unspoken agreement that they both wanted to repair what had been so terribly twisted and broken. Kara didn't have the slightest idea where to start and neither did Lena. But knowing that they both wanted to try? That was enough. She remembered watching Lena walk away that night. After all was said and done with her family. The others wanted to go for celebratory drinks and Alex was the one who invited Lena to join them, but she politely declined. She'd thrown a fleeting glance in Kara's direction and walked away before anyone could protest. Kara felt herself wanting to go after her, but Alex shook her head.

“Let her be for tonight. It's been a rough year. Give it time.”

Not knowing what was right in that moment, Kara decided to listen to her sister. She tried to swallow the knot in her throat and put on a smile as the others eagerly chattered around her, ready to throw off the shackles from the last few weeks after battling Leviathan and the Luthors. Nia slipped her arm around Kara's and tugged at her lightly.

“Come on, Supergirl. You of all people deserve to let off some steam.”

Kara just nodded and went along with them. She made it through one round of drinks before heading home, leaving her friends to enjoy the rest of their night. All she could feel was exhaustion. Mind numbing exhaustion. And it wasn't really that the back to back battles with Leviathan or the Luthors that did it. That was a physical weariness and, sure, there was a little bit of that, but mostly? It was something else she couldn't identify.

She just chalked it up to it being a weird few weeks and knew that she'd back to her usual self by morning. Probably. What was her usual self these days anyway?

Then she'd woken up here.

Now she was debating how to, or even if she should, convince Lena to let them share a bed? Kara belly flopped on the couch and pressed a pillow to her face. She didn't scream because even though muffled, Lena might hear. That was not something she wanted to have to explain.

She debated it when she heard the water shut off. She debated it when she heard the door open and Lena's soft footsteps moved across her room. She debated it when Lena went downstairs again to refill her glass of water, dressed in silk pajamas with damp, tousled hair, the sight of which tugged at something low in Kara's belly in a way that she was not at all used to feeling. She debated it until the moment she was standing in the doorway to the guest bedroom as Lena passed by.

She caught her elbow gently.

“Please?”

The silence after seemed to stretch for eons as Lena held her gaze.

And, finally, she nodded – unable to form the words, but it was enough.

* * *

Kara couldn’t help but feel intimidated by the size of the bed, seemingly magnified in this open room with a backdrop of National City’s lights. She realized she didn’t know which side to take, but didn’t want to make this any more awkward for Lena than it already was. She looked at the nightstands and nearly breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the slightly messy pile of books, a bound daily planner, several pens, a phone charger, and three pairs of identical glasses on the right side. Definitely hers. Lena’s side was much neater and sparse with only a tablet charging on a platform, a glass of water, and a box of tissues.

She quickly pulled back the covers and settled in. Lena had taken a detour to the bathroom and was turning off the light when she saw Kara sitting up in bed and...she looked confused.

Kara bit her lower lip. Had she gotten it wrong?

“What is it?”

Lena shook her head slowly. “It’s only… Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“No, please. Tell me. Did I do something wrong?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why…”

Lena’s gaze searched the room and something changed, the tension that was there moments ago evaporated, but somehow she seemed even more forlorn than before and slipped between the sheets without a word.

“Lena?”

She was quiet for a moment, contemplating her hands. “I just wondered, for a moment, if you’d remembered something.”

Kara was lost.

She took a deep breath and met her eyes. “When we first started to...share a bed...you didn’t know which side you preferred. I thought maybe you remembered, but,” she pointed to Kara’s nightstand, “it was obvious, right?”

Puzzled, Kara nodded anyway.

She knew which side of the bed she liked… Didn’t she? Well, she usually just slept in the middle. It wasn’t like she ever shared a bed with anyone besides Alex when they were kids on vacation. Oh. Well, there were those few times with Mon-El, but… Wait. She slept on the left side then. It never occurred to her to really think about it before. He just always took the right side so Kara had to take the left and that was it.

The look on her face must have given her away because Lena gently covered her hand with her own. Kara couldn’t help but look down at their joined hands and wondered if Lena felt what she did every time they touched.

“I once jokingly asked which side you preferred and it became readily apparent that you had no clue. You claimed it didn’t matter and just wanted me to tell you which side I wanted. Well…it mattered to me. So I refused to say. You were a little annoyed, but kind of curious too. You took the left side for a few nights and then, I don’t know what prompted it, but you were so shy, so nervous, and you asked if we could switch. Just to see. And that’s how we discovered you do have a preference after all.”

“I like sleeping on the right?”

Lena nodded.

“But…what about you? That’s not fair if I just chose and you ended up stuck with the default.”

A sly grin spread across her lips. “As it so happens, my preference is the left.”

“So it worked out perfectly. We…work perfectly.”

Lena sighed and her smile faltered for the briefest moment before she was able to summon it back.

“Yes. We do.”

She laid down, head on the pillow, and turned off the lights with a press of button on her nightstand, blanketing them in darkness. She didn't say goodnight.

Kara slowly followed suit and stared at the ceiling. Her mind turned over their conversation and combined with all she'd discovered with Alex earlier, about what it all meant, as she allowed herself to be lulled by the sound of Lena’s breathing growing even. Kara never really understood until now how comforting it was to have Lena near, to feel her closeness, the scent of her shampoo, the soothing familiarity of her heartbeat. Her presence alone always made things just feel…better. Long before tonight.

It was a while before Lena fell asleep, but as soon as she did, Kara dropped off as well.

* * *

Blissful was how she woke the next morning. Feeling fully rested, relaxed, and discovered that she'd curled around Lena with her head on her chest sometime in the night. Actually, not even that, her face was warmly nestled right between Lena's breasts.

Panic shot through her like a lightning bolt.

Unbeknownst, Lena stirred as well and kissed the top of her head, threading her fingers in Kara's hair lazily.

Kara was frozen. She didn't know what to do. She knew she was supposed to move and put a respectable amount of space between them because clearly Lena wasn't awake enough yet to remember their current situation, but she also...didn't want to. She liked the feeling of being pressed against her like this, of Lena beneath her, the soft heat of her body against every inch of her.

“Any change?” Lena mumbled, sounding still half asleep, and continued to stroke Kara's hair.

“No, I'm sorry.” She started to shift away. “So, so sorry, I shouldn't have been--”

Lena caught her and pulled her back into her arms with minimal effort. “It's all right. Stay.”

“But...”

“Are you worried I'll expect more from you?”

“No, of course not. I'm just...I feel like I'm taking advantage of you.”

Lena gave her sleepy grin and Kara all but melted at how content she looked in that moment. Unguarded. It was a rare sight and a wonder to behold.

“Taking advantage?” she chuckled throatily. “I'm your wife. Cuddling is implied in the marriage contract.” She paused. “Unless it's too much. I didn't mean to make you feel uncom--”

“You didn't,” Kara said quickly and settled back into her arms, her head resting on Lena's shoulder this time though, much more innocuous. “I'm just not used to this. I don't know what's okay and what's not. It's like... For me, we're moving _so_ fast, but I know we're married so it's not fast, and it feels good...it feels _right_...but my head tells me that it's not. I'm sorry I'm making things so complicated for you.”

Lena's arms tightened around her briefly. “Do me a favor, love?”

“Anything.”

She truly meant it.

“No more apologizing.”

“I can do that.”

Lena exhaled softly and Kara could hear her heartbeat slowing as she dropped back off to sleep. Unable to keep the smile off her face, she let herself nuzzle lightly into Lena's neck, breathing her in, and watched the sun rise over the city while lying in Lena's arms. She couldn't remember the last time she felt this happy...or safe. Maybe on Krypton. Maybe not even then.

She only wished it could be real.


	5. Chapter 5

A while after Lena dropped off again, Kara reluctantly disentangled herself, struggling to leave that perfect little burrow of comfort, to get ready for work. She looked back at her, still sound asleep despite the daylight pouring into the room, and the flutter in her chest was there again. It always was but she couldn't ignore it this time. Not the way she used to.

In the past, she'd always dismissed it as feelings of friendly affection. Platonic love. But this world she’d woken up to didn't give her that choice. The flutters had always meant something else and she didn’t get to deny that anymore. After a long moment, she blinked and turned away in heated embarrassment, realizing that she’d just been _watching Lena sleep_. So inappropriate and totally creepy. Shaking her head, she tried to pull herself out of the spell she’d been under.

Lena was already dealing with so much, supporting her unconditionally, having what seemed to be an infinite amount of tenderness and patience for her, so she really didn't need this muddying of waters between them. It wasn't fair to her when Kara couldn't remember a single thing about who they'd become. It was amazing though... She always knew that this was the kind of person Lena was for the people she loved, but she’d never seen it quite so clearly as she did now.

With a sigh, she tried to put all those thoughts aside and focused on showering while mentally preparing herself for another day as CEO. The fact that she wasn’t dreading it nearly as much as she thought she would was actually the scariest part of this new development of her career. She never thought this was something she’d be doing one day, let alone _enjoy_ doing.

When she finally decided to be a reporter, and naturally that revelation owed much to Lena, she thought that was it. That was her career for life. Considering how much time Supergirl required, there was no feasible way to move up and still be able to balance the work/superhero life. She’d always thought that her life as Kara Danvers would be shrouded in anonymity and now she'd discovered that she’d thrown all of that to the wind, stepping forward proudly into the world as Kara Danvers, CEO of Catco Worldwide Media, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, last year's Siegal Award for Women in Media winner, currently on the short list for this year’s Nobel based on a series of articles she wrote that she was also considering turning into a book (according to Nia), and _wife_ of billionaire tycoon/genius scientist, Lena Luthor. Her parents would have been proud. She didn't end up being the Science Guild prodigy they intended on Krypton, but at least she married one.

_Rao._

All of this was enough to make her head spin so much that she had to sit down if she let herself think about it too much.

So she wouldn't think about it.

After showering and dressing, she made her way down to the kitchen. The other day, she’d gone with the easiest thing to make with whatever was in the first cabinet she opened. But she hadn’t really explored the kitchen beyond that. There was a door that looked like it might lead to a closet at the end of the counter, but it was an odd spot for a closet. Curious, she opened it and her jaw dropped. It was a massive walk in pantry. Stocked to the ceiling with every imaginable dry and canned good product. If this was in any average human’s home, it would look like they were preparing for the apocalypse and they likely would have a bomb shelter built underneath the house ready to withstand a nuclear winter.

But this was the home of a Kryptonian living on Earth which made this restaurant quality pantry absolutely perfect. Kara wandered in and scanned all the products with delight, noting how every single one of her favorites was in there. Not just one, but in multiples! She could hardly contain the glee of seeing so much food at her fingertips, but it also presented her with a conundrum.

For the life of her, she couldn’t decide what to eat first.

She probably stood there for a solid 9 minutes internally debating what she’d have for breakfast until the choices became so overwhelming that she just grabbed a box of her favorite cereal and resolved to try diving deeper next time.

When Lena finally came down, still in her pajamas, Kara had already polished off several bowls and was pouring herself another. Lena didn’t look like she was in a rush or even close to getting ready for work, which was odd because it was getting late. Kara had the advantage of flight and super-speed, but Lena still kept up her image and had a driver take her to work every day. She’d mentioned that it was actually an enjoyable commute because it was quiet, relaxing, and she got more done on the drive to and from L-Corp than she did in hours at her desk with all the interruptions.

Lena went straight for the coffee that Kara brewed and seemed to savor each drop as she tucked her hands around the warmth of the mug, sipping it, and cradled it close to her chest.

“No work today?”

“I decided it would be best to work from home. I was hoping you'd call Julian and let him know the same.”

Kara put down her bowl with a pensive expression. “Lab day?”

Lena nodded. “Lab day.”

* * *

The second day was worse than the first. So much worse.

The first was okay actually, all things considered. There were some hiccups and awkwardness, but it went by quickly. Lena didn't ask her to stay there for very long.

But it began the moment she entered the underground building.

The feeling that her clothes weren't fitting right, too tight somehow, even though they'd been perfectly fine up to that moment. There was this grating edge to every noise she heard. A restlessness that itched at the back of her neck. It wasn't until that evening, after they had dinner, cleaned up, and were getting ready for bed, when Kara changed out of the day's clothes and into what should have been much more comfortable pajamas, that she realized it wasn't her clothes that were too tight, it was her skin.

In between tests, to fill the silence, and distract herself from the growing discomfort, Kara asked questions.

“Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help?”

“Not with this.” Lena glanced at her sympathetically. “I'm sorry. I know I'd be climbing the walls if the roles were reversed.”

“Was considering climbing Everest instead. It’d take all of 2 seconds.”

“Think about it this way,” a teasing glint in her eyes, “if I can't figure it out here, Alex will probably take to the streets and start doing shakedowns. I'm sure you'll be able to jump in on that fun. Maybe punch a few bad guys while you're at it.”

“I'm not opposed to the idea, but... Really?” she decried. “Take it to the streets? Shakedowns? You make my sister - the highly trained, human lethal weapon, director of a massive government black ops - sound like a cheesy beat cop from the 90s.”

“If the ill fitting blue uniform fits...”

“Lena!” she gasped dramatically. “If she heard you speaking such profanity...”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes, “kill me with her pinkie, they'd never find the body, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Ah, you've already had this discussion.”

“Only about a hundred times over the years. She's all talk in her old age.”

Kara clapped a hand over her mouth to smother the giggles. “You are a braver woman than I, Miss Luthor. I don't know how you've made it this long.”

“Wanna know the secret?”

Kara nodded eagerly and propped her hand up on her chin, listening intently as Lena leaned in with a whisper.

“Marry a Super.” She raised her eyebrow mischievously. “They come in very handy during those life or death situations.”

Kara snorted. “There's no way I fight your battles for you with Alex.”

“You don't have to. She knows how much you love--” She stopped, closing her mouth, and turned away stiltedly. “I mean, she just knows you wouldn't appreciate being widowed.”

“Oh. Sure.” Kara rubbed the back of her neck. “That makes sense.”

A few minutes passed in awkward silence and Kara found herself staring at the walls again, lightly kicking her heels at the exam table.

“So how did it happen anyway?” she tried, desperate for distraction. “Since we're talking about Alex. I thought it was really... Well, it seemed like she and Kelly were in it for the long haul. I tried asking her about it, but she shut me down. _Hard_. Kinda sorta scared to try again.”

“It’s a sensitive topic. They broke it off about 3 years ago.”

“But why?”

Lena looked uncomfortable. “It was just one of those things. A mistake you can’t come back from. No matter how much both parties want to.”

“Cheating?” Kara caught on, gaping. “That's horrible! I never thought Kelly would be the type—“

“It wasn’t Kelly.”

Her back went ramrod straight. Every muscle in her body tensed. “No. Absolutely not.”

Lena seemed to expect it. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“Alex would never!” she insisted, bordering on angry. She didn't know where the sudden intensity came from. “I know my sister and she would _never_ do that.”

“Maggie was in town for a while,” Lena continued calmly. “Visiting. So they met up a few times, just catching up really. But Alex...I don’t think she ever fully got over her. So one thing led to another and...”

“Stop. Just stop.” Kara put her hand over her mouth, feeling ill. “I can’t... It's _Alex_.”

“I know. It was a shock to everyone. Alex most of all. Anyway, she said she realized what a mistake it’d been and that what happened was the last bit of closure she needed. She was ready to move on, but it was too late, of course. Damage done. They tried to make it work, Kelly tried to get past it, but there are some wounds that go too deep.”

She shook her head. “Alex must have been devastated.”

“They both were. Betrayal often comes with the highest price.”

Kara looked up sharply at that, but Lena said nothing more.

They didn’t talk about Alex and Kelly anymore.

* * *

That night, they went to bed late. Lena fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. She'd worked the whole day in the lab, long after she'd freed Kara, and nearly nodded off into her wine at dinner. Kara had ushered her to bed after that without protest.

As she lay beside Lena, the unease that began earlier continued to grow. She couldn't sleep. Careful not to wake her, Kara got up, donned the familiar second skin, and flew out over the city.

This wasn't the first time she'd done it or even the second. She'd gone flying over National City almost every night since she woke up in this new life. Watching...listening... Alex told her to back off on the responsibilities of Supergirl and she did, but she couldn't let go completely. Patrolling was one of the few semblances of normalcy she had left. It usually helped, but tonight was different.

It didn't soothe her the way it did before. It didn't relieve the tension in her jaw or the heat behind her eyes. It helped a little, but not nearly enough.

A couple hours later, she tried to slip back between the sheets undetected, but only managed to put her hand on the mattress before Lena's voice sounded in the dark, not a trace of sleep to be heard.

“Patrolling?”

Kara winced and sat down at the edge of the bed, her back to Lena. “I'm sorry. Did I wake you?”

“You’re very stealthy, but...I feel when you're gone.”

It wasn't an admonishment, but Kara felt a guilty tug all the same. She mumbled more apologies, but Lena moved closer.

“It's all right. I knew where you were. Even with a couple years to get used to having others step in as the heroes so you don’t have to, you’re always still on the alert to protect the city. To protect the world. It’s your calling. With time, I think it’s gotten a little easier to accept stepping away, but you still do a patrol sweep of the city every night. Sometimes during the day too. You don’t get involved, which pains you to the core, but I think just being there sometimes even only as back up, should they ever need it, it helps.”

Kara nodded even though she wasn't sure Lena could see it in the dark room. “It does. Even though they don’t need me, just knowing that I'm there if they did...makes me feel a little less useless.”

“You are the furthest thing from useless.”

She swallowed thickly when Lena's hand came to rest intimately on her lower back.

“But I understand feeling the need for a purpose greater than what our day jobs are. Kara, between us, we oversee about 100 companies that are making a difference in the world, making a _better_ world. The strides we’ve made in the past few years will have a lasting impact for generations. But it’s easy to get lost in the mind numbing minutiae of day-to-day busywork and feel like you’ve accomplished exactly nothing worthwhile.”

Her voice was rich and low against Kara's ear as she touched her chin to Kara's shoulder, moving closer still, molding herself to Kara's back, soft and sleep-warmed. Kara's heart thumped wildly against her chest, which seemed deeply unfair since Lena's remained steady as ever. Only the slightest stutter every now and again gave away that she might be affected as well.

“Which is why you’ll always find me tinkering away in a lab on Fridays instead of my office. Also on weekends...but I try not to do that too often because I want to be with you and our friends. And you don't really give me a choice sometimes,” she admitted with a wry chuckle. “What I mean is, I still work on my personal projects, my research, my own inventions, because it makes me feel like I have a purpose when I can build something with my own two hands. Intellectually, however, I know I could delegate most of that work and be far more efficient if I didn’t insist on doing it myself. I imagine it’s a similar feeling for you when it comes to being Supergirl. Except on a much grander scale.”

Kara's throat tightened and she didn't hesitate. She tugged Lena into her arms, holding her in silence for a while before turning her nose into her hair.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“For what?”

“For understanding. For making me feel less alone.” She sighed. “For everything.”

It seemed to be better then. The strange feeling that had lingered throughout the day was finally banished and she was able to fall asleep.

* * *

But the second lab day proved her very, very wrong.

They went back the next morning for another round of tests. Lena warned her that this day would be longer than yesterday, but Kara reassured her that she would manage just fine. Anything to figure out what happened.

She really did have to marvel at the lengths Lena went to create this underground city that they so underwhelmingly referred to as a paltry 'laboratory'. She'd only seen a fraction of the interior so far, but each section she discovered was more mind-blowing than the next. Not to mention that Valor was definitely a heavyweight champ in any battle she and Kelex were waging - in Lena's mind anyway.

Valor floated benignly in place across from her at eye level as Kara stared her down from where she was seated on the exam bed.

“So my family worshiped _Mordo_ ,” she said, looking the AI with a scholarly sort of scrutiny, arms crossed, “what are the eight principles of _raogrhys_?”

“Apologies, Lady Kara, but I must correct you,” the AI replied. “The House of El is sworn to _Telle_ under _Rao_ – god of Sapience and Enlightenment. And there are only six principles of _raogrhys:_ English translation – power. _”_

Kara slapped her hands on the bed. “Shoot! I thought I had you.”

“Does Lady Kara wish me to list the six principles of _raogrhys?_ ”

“No, no,” Kara grumbled. “I'm convinced you know them.”

“Should I bring in a chessboard for you two?” Lena asked, her back to them as she watched several monitors. “If you're so intent on waging a battle of the wits...”

“I'm just admiring your work,” she replied innocently. “Testing her out, seeing how brilliant you are.”

“Any conclusions after all this _admiration_ so far?”

Kara looked Valor up and down, squinting in appraisal. “Can you get me a number ten from Mister Jiu's?”

“Affirmative. Order placed. Estimated time of arrival is 3 hours, 41 minutes, and 29 seconds.”

“Yes!” she shouted delightedly, pumping her fists in the air. “Valor has officially passed the test. You're a certified genius, Lena. Unparalleled.”

“Wait, why on earth would the delivery take so long?” She looked over her shoulder in surprise. “Where did you order from, Shanghai?”

“No, San Francisco. It's the closest thing we can get to the real thing without having to cross an ocean.”

Lena shook her head. “As long as you're enjoying yourself.”

Kara deflated a little at that. “Well, what else am I supposed to do for entertainment? You say you can't talk because you have to focus on monitoring all this stuff and I'm not allowed to go anywhere so am I supposed to sit here silently staring at a wall, for _hours_ on end, for what would be _two days_ in a row now? That's how people lose their minds, Lena.”

“I wasn't arguing, darling,” she chuckled. “I'm happy you're happy about the soggy, cold Chinese takeout dish you're getting in 3 hours.”

“Approximately 3 hours, 39 minutes, and 58 seconds, Miss Luthor.”

She rolled her eyes. “Thank you and you're excused, Valor.”

“Yes, Miss Luthor.”

The AI floated out of the room and Kara just barely resisted waving goodbye. “Aw, you sent away my new friend.”

“It wasn't personal,” Lena answered distractedly, gathering some interesting looking tech from the counter. “Her presence would cause an EMI event with the next test.”

So far, the so-called 'tests' Lena wanted to do weren't nearly as invasive as Kara thought they might be. In fact, she'd really just been sitting there twiddling her thumbs and playing with Valor while seemingly invisible machines did things that she didn't even bother asking Lena to explain.

“What's next then?”

Lena didn't answer, instead she pressed a few buttons on her pad and the lights overhead changed. The fluorescents dimmed and a strange, flat red light blanketed the room. Kara looked around curiously and watched as Lena opened a box that contained several neatly rowed circular devices. They powered up and whirled into the air, beeping and rudely flashing lights.

Lena came over and placed two wireless electrodes on either side of Kara's temple, one on her forehead, and one at the base of her skull. “Lie down, please. It won't take long.”

Though feeling unsettled, Kara did as told, eyeing the whirly things as they formed a perfect semi circle above her. “Is this when the torture begins? They look like they're about to zap me.”

“They're just taking neural scans.”

“They're probes,” Kara said, glaring up at the noisy little balls. “You're _probing_ me.”

Lena was only paying half attention as the results poured in on her screens. “Is this the part where I play the mad scientist and cackle about how I've got the alien all to myself?"

“You've definitely set the scene for it,” Kara admitted, still staring up at the devices, her skin starting to itch even more.

She didn't know why she felt so restless. Last night it seemed to get better, only to somehow be even worse today. She tapped her fingers anxiously against the bed and considered zapping one of the little balls with her heat vision. Just because. But the whirlimajigs seemed to be finished already and they flew back over to the box Lena had open for them, powering down harmlessly.

“You can sit up now.”

Kara breathed a sigh of relief and shot up at once, grateful not to be lying down anymore. Lena removed the electrodes with a swift, professional sort of detachment. The disquiet continued to gnaw away at her insides and she rubbed the back of her neck, trying to relieve the tension.

“Is there a reason why you needed to make the room look all sinister and foreboding with that light?” she grumbled. “As if a lab isn't intimidating enough when you're the subject.”

Lena was too engrossed in parsing through the data on her screen to respond fully, but she kicked a metal stool towards Kara without looking. “Bend it.”

“What? Why? Aw man, I was really going to try to make it through a whole 48 hours without breaking something in here.”

“Go on.”

Sighing, Kara picked up the stool and bent it.

Except she didn't.

It didn't so much as creak.

Baffled, she tried harder. Nothing happened. Her brow furrowed intensely as she put so much effort into it that she was groaning, but the stupid thing never budged. Unease rose in her chest like a tidal wave. She dumped the stool on the floor with a loud clatter.

“What happened to my powers?”

Lena didn't seem to notice the edge in her voice. She simply gestured to the lights around the room. “Red sun emitters.”

“Red sun as in...Krypton's sun?”

“Yes, I was able to recreate the radiation of a red sun for an indefinite period of time and increased the concentration of the solar waves. The radiation is harmless. The DEO only ever managed to incorporate it into hand grenades for short but powerful bursts to slow a Kryptonian in a fight. Vastly shortsighted use of it.”

Her stomach churned. “And, naturally, you discovered a way to incapacitate me better than they ever could.”

Lena was oblivious. She had that so-familiar-it-hurt tone of delight she always had when telling Kara about one of her new inventions. “I continued to experiment and tried incorporating trace amounts of _Harun-El_ to be released every time they're turned on. The results were remarkable! It increased its effectiveness by roughly 900%.”

Ice shot through Kara's veins. “You're using _Harun-El_...” she croaked. “Right now?”

Lena waved her hand. “A barely detectable amount. By combining the two, the _Harun-El_ briefly affects your molecular makeup in a way that allows you to absorb solar radiation instantaneously. Before, it took some time for your cells to fully succumb to the radiation, which meant about a 15 minute lag until you didn't have your powers anymore. That would have been fine, but I knew I could improve the reaction time, and--”

“And in your mind,” Kara interrupted darkly, “you somehow thought that it was perfectly okay to use black kryptonite on me.”

She didn't realize how loud her voice was until she heard it echoing back. It seemed to be enough to finally pull Lena out from the giddy research-induced tunnel vision. She spun around, concern written all over her face with an unasked question. Kara couldn't look her in the eye as fury seethed in her chest.

“You're upset by this.” Lena's shoulders fell with sigh. “That's understandable. I mean, for you, you must be thinking of—”

“Being trapped in a block of ice with kryptonite flooding my body?” she snapped. “Yeah. It was a thought.”

“I'm sorry.” She crossed her arms protectively. “I wasn't thinking about how close that memory is for you right now. But I didn't-- It's made so many things possible! The _circumstances_ under which this came about is for an entirely different reason than what you're thinking.”

Kara scoffed. “Please. Like this didn't happen when you were plotting your revenge against me that whole year.”

Lena's voice was quiet. “It didn't.”

“It's fine. I'm fine.” She shook her head with a scowl. “I should know to expect this by now anyway. After everything...” She exhaled shortly. “You'd think the least you could do is give me a warning, but you're using it for _good_ so I don't get to be mad, right? That's usually how you like to justify yourself.”

Lena sucked in a shaky breath, seeming like she didn't know what to say. She just nodded and turned back to the monitors. It was a long moment before she glanced over her shoulder, her gaze low and fixated on some random spot on the bed next to Kara. “I assure you, I won't turn the lights on again without your permission.”

“Is this the part where I say I believe you?”

The look on Lena's face said that Kara might as well have struck her.

They didn't speak for the rest of the morning.

* * *

Alex arrived around noon, just as Lena was able to let Kara take a break to stretch her legs. She was by the pool behind the house when Alex came around. Kara dragged her bare foot through the water, kicking up a huge wave that dumped half the pool onto the surrounding area.

“I see your day is going well.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Lena told me.”

Kara groaned and spun around. “What is that about? Are you guys best friends now or something? Cause I hate this odd man out thing. You're _my_ sister, you're supposed to be on _my_ side!”

“Kara, I love you both. There's no side here. What is going on?”

She couldn't hold back any longer.

“Her entire lab is lined with lead!” She gestured wildly. “Her house, supposedly my house too, is surrounded by a force field and other crazy scary defenses that I don't even know about yet. She made a device that renders me completely powerless! And then had the nerve to act like it was totally normal to use her stolen formula for _Harun-El_ on me? Where's the rest of the kryptonite, Alex? Does she have it stockpiled somewhere for a rainy day when she decides to hate me again?”

“Stop.” Her sister held her hand out warningly. “I know that you're going through a rough time right now, but Lena doesn't deserve that. Least of all from you. Don't you dare do this to her. You both have been through enough.”

“Me?” she echoed. “How am I to blame in all of this? She's the one coming up with every weapon possible to hurt--”

“Are you insane? Look around! You live in _paradise_! Lena has devoted her life to helping people. To create and inspire and be a force for good in this world. She won't admit it, but she fights like hell to make sure that she is somehow, in her mind, deserving enough to be at your side.”

“You don't get to be so self-righteous about this,” Kara replied irritably. “I distinctly remember being the only one, for a _long_ time, who believed in Lena's capacity for good.”

“You're right. It's one of my greatest regrets and Lena knows that. I'll spend the rest of my life making it up to her. She's my family now.” She exhaled, softening for a moment. “I know how much it hurt, Kara. You had such faith in her and she hurt you. You hurt each other. But you have to realize that we are _so far_ past that now. Everything Lena has done these past six years is to make the world a better place. It's not even about the Luthor name anymore.”

“No? I seem to remember her choosing the Luthors even after everything Lex did to us and to--”

“She made a mistake.” Alex interrupted. “After feeling like there was no one left in the world that would love her, after she found out that everyone in her life that she cared about was lying to her, of course she tried to seek solace anywhere she could and ended up turning to her brother. But you seem to be forgetting that she _killed_ him, Kara. For you! You lost the last six years, but I know you didn't lose the memory of that. Lena made a mistake when she sided with Lex, but I know now that it was because she saw it as a potential second chance, however small, to wipe some of his blood off her hands. It was a doomed cause. She knew that too.”

“So that makes it okay then?” she replied venomously, hands on her hips. “She sided with her murderous brother instead of us, instead of me, because her _feelings were hurt_ and that makes it okay? No! Alex, she helped him build the monstrosity that he used with Leviathan! E-even if she didn’t know the exact details, she always knew what a monster Lex was. Deep down, she _knew_ , and she sided with him anyway. I was barely ready to forgive her, let alone try to trust her again, and then I woke up and this is my world! _This_ is suddenly my life?”

“You've only seen a small sliver of it.” Alex interlocked her fingers pleadingly. “We've been so focused on protecting you and doing everything we possibly can to get your memories back...you wouldn't have seen the rest. Kara, your public life as Supergirl has grown times a thousand. Whatever spotlight you thought was on you before, it's gone seriously global in the past few years. And it's an extraordinary amount of responsibility on Lena's part because the world now sees her as one of Supergirl's allies. Everything she does is scrutinized beyond belief, more than they even hold _you_ accountable for. For every criticism you receive, Lena gets it times ten. The people love you. You're the dashing superhero who sacrifices herself to save others. But the standard they hold Supergirl to is nothing compared to what they expect of _her_.”

Alex sighed.

“Lena doesn't just try to be good, Kara, she literally _fights_ for it because the whole world is itching for the chance to knock her down if she so much as flinches. But she's still here. She's saved your life, my life, our friends, and the entire universe, a dozen times over. We would not be standing here today with you making a childish mess of your own backyard if it wasn't for her.”

Kara knew she should listen. She knew she should find a way to rein it in and have more compassion and be reasonable. But the rage wouldn't subside. Everything Alex said only seemed to fuel it somehow and she couldn't push it down as it reared its ugly head. It coursed through her veins with such fire and built behind her eyes that she clenched her fists at her side as she desperately tried to keep herself from blasting everything in sight.

“You say this stuff, but I don’t remember any of it!” she replied furiously. “How am I supposed to know that this is real? How do I know you’re _actually_ my sister? Maybe this really is a different Earth and the multiverse survived after all. Or this could be just some trap in my mind! Another Black Mercy attack. Or maybe I’m in a coma again! Maybe Lena’s even the one behind it.” She chuckled miserably. “This whole world seems to be centered on her so…why not?”

“Wow.” Alex shook her head. “I don't... It's strange, but I don't remember this side of you, Kara. Maybe it's unfair on my part, to expect more, but _Jesus_.”

“There’s no proof! Why can’t you understand where I’m coming from? The Alex that I know would at least try to see it from my side!”

“Your side?” she repeated disdainfully. “You know…while you've been moping around like a spoiled child, what do you think Lena's been doing?”

Kara’s clenched her jaw and said nothing, but Alex pointed as if she’d given away the answer.

“Exactly! She's been working non-stop to find the tiniest breadcrumb that could lead to an explanation as to why your brain has a black hole where six years of your life should be. Kara, you're still my sister, but Lena lost her wife. Do you get that? You're treating her like she’s the enemy when to her you're...” She shook her head again. “It's not right. I don't expect you to be the same person and I can't imagine what you must be experiencing, but I do expect you to be better than _this_.”

Kara was speechless as Alex walked away.


	6. Chapter 6

It took a while before Kara finally worked up the nerve to go back into the house. The forgotten delivery from Mister Jiu's arrived with her cold and soggy number 10 and she had to meet the delivery woman at the end of the long driveway where there was a massive, locked wrought iron gate. She had no idea how to open it except to break it...a little. The meal was already paid for in addition to an extremely generous tip. Valor covered all the bases. Bag in hand, Kara stared at the front door for a long moment before finally reaching for the handle.

Her sister was in the kitchen making lunch. Which was...different. A different kind of normal.

She couldn't remember the last time she saw Alex actually making her own food. Were things really so changed now? She dropped the takeout on the counter and sat down without a word, but Alex didn't even acknowledge her presence.

Accidentally reducing the first pair of chopsticks to kindling, Kara took a deep, calming breath before successfully (gently) snapping the second set apart. She dug into the meal at once, not caring that it was cold and soggy as predicted, and inhaled it in just about 60 seconds flat. She couldn't even taste it.

Meanwhile, Alex kept her back to her as she mixed some fresh greens and grilled chicken and Kara stared at her in silence, mind racing with all the things she wanted to say, but bit back. How could she make her see? How to make her understand? This was all new territory. Before, Alex would never have straddled a line of loyalty between her and Lena. It was downright unthinkable even. If Kara had voiced a concern about her before, Alex would have been kicking down doors and throwing Lena into a DEO cell before Kara even managed to finish the sentence. But now...

Unable to keep still, she jumped up from the chair, throwing away the empty containers, and paced back and forth on the opposite side of the island, glancing at Alex's back every few seconds.

Finally, she halted and slapped her hands on the counter.

“You have to understand, for me, in my world, Lena just stopped working with Lex days ago. This past year, s-she’s done nothing but try to hurt me! To punish me. And I know that I deserved some of it, but the other things...” Kara started pacing again. “I want to be over this, Alex. I want to forgive her, to move on and not think about all that happened. I want it all back the way it was before we hurt each other. It’s killing me that I still feel this way, that I can’t just...” She sighed. “I know none of this is fair to Lena, but I’m trying. You have to see that.”

Alex didn’t make eye contact, instead she wiped her hands on a towel and pushed a bowl of salad she’d just prepared towards her. “Bring this to Lena. I know she hasn’t eaten today.”

Kara stared down at it for a long moment before looking back up in disbelief.

“That’s it? That’s-that’s all you’re going to say?”

“Yup.”

Kara stood there for a long moment, torn between confusion and a startling sense of anger. She stared at the side of Alex’s head, unable to choose between the two. Meanwhile, Alex continued her lunch preparation, business as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. It was as if Kara was an intemperate child and Alex was the level headed mother waiting it out.

Was she really being so unreasonable that even Alex, the most steadfast and loyal person in her life, couldn’t see her side? Was she truly that far off the mark?

No.

This was wrong. Kara had a right to be angry and just because they all moved on didn’t mean that it was okay for them to expect her to do the same at the snap of their fingers. She finally grabbed the bowl and stormed off to the lab without another word. Alex didn't turn around.

* * *

Thank _Rao_ for Valor because without her, Kara would have assuredly been wandering the labyrinth of the lab for hours.

Lena was in a different room than earlier. It was walled with screens and on the left, there was a large console that had a detailed holographic projection of what Kara was certain was her own brain, rotating slowly at 360 degrees. Lena was sitting on a high stool at the center of it all. So impressed and distracted by the technological advancements Lena had made in just the past six years, Kara jumped slightly when Valor announced her arrival.

“Lady Kara for you, Miss Luthor.”

“Thank you, Valor,” Lena replied without turning around.

The AI left them alone and Kara felt incredibly awkward standing there with a bowl of food in her hand while Lena didn't seem interested in acknowledging her presence.

Of course. Why would she expect anything different? Maybe Alex was taking a page out of Lena's playbook.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, she nearly shattered the bowl in her firm grip. The conversation with Alex earlier had succeeded in knocking her down a few pegs, but a storm still raged beneath the surface. Kara couldn’t let it go. Not yet. The wounds were too raw and despite all that she’d done to try to ignore that pain, to make this new reality work somehow, it wasn’t going away.

She was still furious.

And still devastated.

Lena, her best friend, the woman she believed in with her whole heart, lied and went behind her back to make the one thing in the world that could kill her. And then used it against her in the one place she had left of her home, _on Krypton’s soil,_ despite all her promises about how she never would do such a thing. How was Kara supposed to forget about all of that?

“Alex made you lunch,” she said woodenly.

“Thank you.” Lena pointed to an empty surface. “You can leave it over there.”

Begrudgingly, she put it down, and looked at Lena who still had her back to her. Ugliness burned and clawed inside her chest.

“Isn’t this supposed to be the other way around?”

Lena stiffened, but said nothing, remaining in place.

“Alex said I’m being a child, but you’re the one who can’t even face me.”

“Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do what?” she snapped. “Be mad? Be angry with you for the choices you made? Where you hurt people? Sided with your evil sociopathic brother against the world?”

Lena spun around. “I never meant to hurt anyone! I didn’t know what he was doing.”

“That’s a lie and you know it. I thought we didn’t lie to each other anymore? Isn’t that what you said?”

“We don’t!” she cried, taking a step forward, nostrils flaring, before she seemed to catch herself. She breathed deeply and clasped her fingers so tightly they turned white. It was a long moment before she met Kara’s gaze again, but when she did, Kara almost wished she hadn’t.

There was so much pain in her eyes.

“I dreaded this part,” she said thickly. “I knew if we had to start all over again then inevitably this part had to come alongside the good. Kara, we have been down this road far too many times and I will not relitigate old arguments with you. _I can't_. Please don't ask me to.”

“I’ve never said any of this before!” she exclaimed. “How can you expect me to move on if I can’t even say what I’m feeling first? Everyone just expects me to be okay, but I'm not. I am _not_ okay with this! I can't keep pretending like nothing happened. Like it didn't affect me. Because it did!”

Lena turned away, swearing under her breath. She stood there for a long beat, hand over her mouth, seemingly warring with herself before she faced Kara again with that terribly familiar mask of businesslike indifference.

“Fine.”

“...Fine?”

“Yes, _fine_. Say it. Say the things you need to say. Get it all out.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

“Okay, well...” She stumbled, thrown by the startling cold against the fury she felt. “Where do I even start?”

“Anywhere you want.” Lena was inscrutable. “You know what? I’ll help get things kicked off with a classic. You’re angry that I manufactured kryptonite and hid it from you.”

The cool nonchalance in the way she said it just made everything in Kara’s chest implode.

“Hid it and lied because you knew how wrong it was.”

“That’s your opinion, but not a fact, unfortunately.”

“You stole Myriad.”

“Yes, I did.”

“And then imprisoned me in the Fortress by programming it to turn on me. Trapped me in a case of ice laced with kryptonite and just... _left_ me there. To what? Rot? You knew it wasn’t enough to kill me, but you wanted me to suffer _._ How long did you think I would be stuck in there? How long did you _hope_ for?”

“I knew the others would find you soon enough.”

“That doesn't answer my question.”

“I wanted you in there long enough for me to leave without you stopping me.”

Kara rolled her eyes. “Another lie.”

“What do I have to gain by lying to you now? Listen to my heartbeat, Kara. You’re purposely avoiding it because you don’t want to believe me. You’re not ready to.”

“Who are you to tell me what I’m ready for?” she replied bitterly. “You don’t know anything about me!”

“I know more than you think. But back then? Whose fault was it then that I didn’t _know_ you?”

“I was trying to protect you!”

Lena nodded. “That was a part of it, but not the whole thing.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you! I had to keep you safe,” she insisted. “If I told you the truth about me, it would have put you in so much danger. But _you_ … When you found out, you didn’t tell me. You just lied to my face. Over and over again with such _malice_. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think of everything you said. You orchestrated all of these elaborate schemes and manipulated me because you wanted to make me feel used and humiliated. Just to get back at me. To exact your revenge! I’ve always known you were more than your family name, that you weren’t like them, but this past year o-or whenever it was? There were moments where I wondered, for the first time, if I’d been wrong all along. I was angry with you for making me doubt it. And I'm...I'm still _so_ angry with you. I don't know how to forgive you for that.”

Lena folded her arms across her chest, listening impassively.

“You did everything in your power to hurt me. Coldly. Calculatingly. Cruelly. I was doing what I thought was right when I kept my identity a secret. I know now that it was a mistake and I know how much that hurt you, but _you_ …you betrayed me simply because you wanted me to feel pain.” Kara’s voice broke. “Don’t you see how different that is?”

The silence was deafening.

“Is that everything?” Lena asked at last.

Kara’s eyes widened. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she bit back sarcastically, “that wasn’t enough for you? Let me think, what did I leave out? How about that time you had 3 dozen armed kryptonite cannons aimed directly at me? Or – I know! – when you promised my _mother_ that you returned all of the _Harun-El_ , after she warned us how dangerous it could be, but instead you were making more of it behind our backs. Hey, we could even talk about that time where you hid Sam in your secret basement laboratory for weeks without a word meanwhile Reign beat me to into a coma!”

Lena was silent.

Waiting.

After several long beats, a soundless war between their piercing gazes and blood pounding, Kara relented with a huff.

“Yeah. Whatever. That’s everything.”

“Good,” she replied with a sigh. “Kara, I will never be able to express how much I regret the choices I made and how sorry I am, _so deeply sorry_ , for what I did and how I hurt you. But I can’t go through the rest that follows. Not again. We argued so much and we said terrible things. It seemed like there would be no end to it until I asked you a simple question: ‘Do you want me?’”

Kara sucked in a breath.

“You didn’t answer at first,” Lena continued with a dismissive wave of her hand, “just stared at me like I’d painted myself purple and started doing cartwheels in the street. But I asked again. Do you want me? In your life. As your friend. As _more_ than a friend. Me, with my truckloads of baggage, mistakes, mass murdering family history, all of the mess that comes with being a Luthor, and with me being _me_. Do you want _me_? If not, then turn around, walk away. We don’t have to do this anymore. We don’t have to torture each other like this. But if you do...”

Her voice faltered.

“If you _do_ , then all these grievances have to be left behind. We have to move past it, learn from it, be better because of it, and not weaponize it to keep hurting each other. And that’s where it changed for us. That’s where we, our relationship as it is now...or was...began.”

“What--” Kara croaked and crossed her arms defensively. “Ahem, what did I say?”

Lena’s expression remained impenetrable. “You tell me. What do you want to say right now?”

Kara inhaled sharply, looking away for a long moment.

“Whatever it is I want...I don’t know if it’s enough.”

“Then I suggest you take some time to figure it out. Meanwhile, I have work to do.”

With Lena’s back turned again, effectively dismissing her, Kara suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of loss. Of fear. Of confusion.

She walked out the door in a daze, feeling sick to her stomach. Valor found her wandering the maze of the lab and escorted her to the surface. Kara wanted to take flight, head straight towards the sun for as long as she could stand, but somehow she couldn’t find it in herself to leave the ground. She felt much too heavy to even remember what it was like to be able to fly. Her feet were sinking into the earth.

_Do you want me?_

Echoing.

But it was her voice, not Lena’s.

* * *

Flightless, she wandered.

None of this was right.

She wanted to scrub herself raw, but there was nothing she could use that would have any effect. She was the Girl of Steel after all. So how was she supposed to get rid of this? This horrible, sickening stain that had seeped into her skin and made hands tremble with rage.

Why did this have to happen? Didn't she suffer enough? Did the gods laugh when they looked down upon her – their abandoned child of Krypton – the last of her kind that could call herself a true Kryptonian. Was she not allowed a reprieve? She put her life at risk every day to save the people of Earth. To save everyone she could. Over and over and over again. No matter how painful. No matter the cost.

Even when it meant sacrificing a man who loved her. Her closest tie to Krypton.

Even when it meant that she would bring only pain and misery to the people she loved.

She suffered through violent attacks on her mind and body on a near regular basis as she tried to stand up for what was good and right in this world.

Now, after defeating yet more foes who brought yet more violence and vitriol from the darkest depths the universe had to offer, she couldn't have a day to breathe. To exist. To be at peace.

This was all supposed to mean something.

If Krypton had to die and she had to live, then that had to mean something.

But instead of a reward in the form of blessed relief, she went to bed and woke up in another world where she was forced to be a stranger in her own life. And continually let down the people she loved.

Would it ever stop? One foot after the other and still the onslaught continued.

From the moment her parents put her in that pod, she'd been doomed. Trapped in the phantom zone for eons, never asleep, never awake. A childhood destroyed. A life forgotten.

Crashing on Earth only to find, as Kal-El reached out his hand, that her infant cousin had grown into a being that was far more human than Kryptonian, and the singular purpose she'd been given, she'd already failed. Years of trying to repress her true nature and assimilate to this strange world that wouldn't understand all that she'd known...and all that she lost. Then she saved Alex's plane and her life took another drastic turn.

Supergirl. It was supposed to be a good thing. It was supposed to be her calling. Her place. It was supposed to help her find peace, but what did it get her instead? Her beloved aunt tried to murder her. Her own mother, a towering paradigm of justice, turned out to be just as fallible and mistaken as anyone else. Her father, a joy of tenderness and light, had designed a device to perform an unconscionable act of violence and enslave whole species.

Supergirl had more failures than successes. The world still churned in turmoil. Nothing she did seemed to stop, or even alleviate, the spread of darkness. Nothing she sacrificed was ever good enough. It would never be enough.

This is what her parents sentenced her to.

A lifetime of suffering on a strange planet, utterly alone, without recourse.

She was only thirteen.

Rage boiled over and this time she didn't hold back the burning heat behind her eyes. She leapt into the sky with a feral cry and blasted the desert below.

It wasn't enough.

She dove back down and slammed her whole body into the ground, feeling the earth shake around her. Again. She leapt into the sky and plummeted back to the desert.

Over and over.

She wanted the pain to stop.

But no matter how high she flew or how hard she made the ground tremble, she couldn't inflict a single ounce of pain on herself. Her legs should have broken at impact. Her fists should be crushed and bloody. Every bone in her body should have been smashed to pieces.

Yet the most she felt was some pressure against her impenetrable skin.

It was as if someone had detonated a bomb inside a bomb shelter. Nothing could get in, nothing could get out, but the destruction remained.

She pummeled her way through the cracked, dead earth. Slamming her fists into the ground, hearing the dull implosion echo and ripple through the soil as she struck again and again. Roaring. Crying. Screaming for them to hear. Did they know what they were doing? Didn't they know that she would have gladly died with them?

She screamed until she couldn't.

* * *

The sun was setting as the dust cloud began to dissipate. Ragged breaths. Tear tracks streaked through a layer of dirt on her face.

Kara raised her too heavy head and looked around at the crater she'd made. It probably ran about a mile wide, maybe 50 or 60 feet deep.

She dropped to her knees, tears still falling in dark splotches on the ground.

She wasn't angry with Lena. Not really. She was too deeply hurt to be angry at all. She loved her and it caused them both so much pain.

Kara didn't just break Lena's heart, she'd broken her own.

If not for her choices, the lies, the way she went behind Lena's back all while promising to be her knight in shining armor, they wouldn't have reached the point they did and Lena wouldn't have gone through the darkness alone. All because Kara was afraid.

Yes, they were both adults and they both made mistakes, but Kara could have prevented it. She knew that. She knew the burden would always reside with her. Trusting Lena again was never about whether or not she believed in her goodness.

Lena Luthor was, and always has been, _good._

But trusting her with her heart again... That was the truly terrifying part. Kara didn't realize how much power Lena had to hurt her until it was shouted in her face. Both of them crying in the Fortress and Lena left her there, walking away into that portal. It broke Kara's heart when Lena chose Lex. Then she did it again by starting _Non Nocere_ \- a slap in the face to everything Kara stood for, turning her back on everything they'd been through.

Still, she loved her. That was the worst of it. She never stopped loving her.

She didn't even know if it was possible to trust her again after all that happened, but it appeared she already had. Clearly she did. In this world, she'd married her.

Kara rubbed her dirt streaked face, wiping away the remnants of her tears. Lena had already lived through the pain of repairing their relationship, and here Kara was, forcing her to go through all of it again just because she was the one who couldn't remember.

That was unacceptable.

Wearily, she made her way out of the crater. Speed and flight seemed to evade her once more, as if she were wearing one of the awful red sun things chained around her neck.

* * *

It was dark by the time she returned. Alex wasn’t in the house. Neither was Lena. But Kara expected that. Of course Lena would still be in the lab.

Where she’d been for hours. Days even. Working with fastidious determination to find a solution. Working herself into an early grave to find a way to help her when all Kara did was...

Alex’s words came back to haunt her. She couldn’t manage to swallow the stone of guilt in her throat.

Exhausted, Kara shed her clothes outside the french doors so she wouldn't track in a pound of dirt and sand from the desert with her. Once clean and dressed again, it was an ingrained ritual that had her reach for the glasses. She almost had them on again when Lena filled her vision. Lena moving close, so close she could hardly bear it, carefully removing them, as if Kara could be hurt somehow. Those piercing eyes, the curve of her mouth, the headiness of her perfume. _'Not with me. Not anymore.'_

She folded the glasses and left them on the table before heading back out to the lab.

Lena was in same room as she was hours ago, with her back to Kara just as before. As if she hadn’t moved in all the time Kara was gone. In fact, it was as if no time had passed at all.

Valor announced her presence again.

And, again, Lena thanked the AI.

For a brief, dark, moment, Kara wondered if she was somehow stuck in a kind of time loop. Doomed to repeat this harrowing encounter as a waking nightmare that only the most sadistic person could dream up for torture.

“It's late.”

Lena didn't respond.

“Are you...” she swallowed hard, “will you be coming back to the house soon?”

It was eerily quiet, save for the soft hum of machines.

“No,” Lena finally answered. “I still have quite a bit of work to do. I'll be here for the night.”

“Oh.”

Kara's heart sank. She didn't know what to do now.

Gloomily, she looked around the room, noting the wilted, untouched salad. She wondered briefly if she should try to bring her something else to eat, but that didn’t feel right. And Lena definitely wouldn’t listen if she tried to convince her to take a break. Maybe if she started small? An ice breaker?

“So...is this the part of married life where we sleep in separate rooms?” She joked, trying to keep her tone light. “Or does someone usually storm out and stay on a friend's couch?”

Lena stopped what she was doing, hands braced on the table, and looked down, not saying a word.

Kara wanted to stick her head in a bucket and kick it herself. Wonderful. Make separation jokes with your wife when you're the one who can't even remember marrying her. Why was she like this?

Alex should have beat her up more.

“That came out horribly. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to-- I don't know what I'm doing.” Kara almost smacked herself across the face for sounding so useless. “Lena, can we... Could we talk? Really talk this time instead of the yelling thing?”

“I'm actually in the middle of something right now. Can it wait until later?”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Of course.” Kara stepped back dejectedly. “I guess I'll just...get out of your hair.”

She was one full step out the door before she turned on her heel and marched back in.

“I'm sorry!” she cried. “I'm so, _so_ sorry, Lena. Please!”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” she replied evenly.

“Of course I do! I jumped to conclusions this morning. I didn't give you the benefit of the doubt. One that you've earned a thousand times over. Then I did this massive emotional dump on you when you asked me not to. Yes, there was a time when you wanted to hurt me, and you really tried to, but even in our lowest moments you never...you always stopped short of the worst. I think about that, you know? Of all the things you could have done but didn’t. Even when you were as angry as you were and had no reason left to trust me or care about me.” She sighed. “I’m sorry for not telling you the truth. You deserved more from me.”

Lena still had her back to her, silence filling the room with its painful, cavernous echo, and the realization smacked Kara in the face with force of a 20-ton wrecking ball.

“And I just did it again. Holy... I just did another giant emotional unload that you actually asked me not to do in the first place. I'm...I'm such a jerk!” she cried. “What is wrong with me?”

“Kara, it's okay. Really.”

“But it's not!” she protested. “None of what happened was okay.”

“Just...” Lena sounded so tired. “Go ahead. Tell me what you need to say.”

Kara was utterly at a loss. There was still so much she wanted to explain and to apologize for, but how could she do that when it seemed to be the most selfish course of action? She wanted to relieve them both of the burden of her missteps earlier, but it seemed to be coming at Lena's expense. All of this had been at Lena's expense.

This is not the person she was. This was not the friend...or whatever else...she wanted to be for Lena.

“I-I don't... I should have listened to you the first time. You said you were busy. We can talk later, only i-if you want to. I won't take up more of your time. I'm sorry, ” she said miserably, hanging her head as she started backing out of the room. “I never meant to... I can't believe how badly I've messed all of this up.”

“You don't...” Lena's voice was barely above a whisper. “You don't _have_ to go.”

Kara froze on the spot, her heart leaping despite all protestations otherwise. The smallest flicker of hope turned into a roaring fire that flooded her body. She desperately wanted to cling to it like the life preserver it was, but kept herself in check. This might be her only chance, so she had to do this right.

“I don't want to...” she replied softly, “but, Lena, you still can't even look at me.”

Lena's back straightened and she took a deep breath before turning to face her. “Better?”

It was decidedly _not_ better. Not with that look on her face. Not with how tightly she held herself, as if she needed to protect herself against Kara. It was a sound blow to her heart.

“I really should leave. I shouldn't have come down here in the first place. This is your space and I wasn't respect--”

“You're here,” she replied firmly. “And I know you have more you need to say. Go ahead, please. Say it now. It'll only drag this all out more if we put it off. I'm listening, I promise.”

Kara wrestled with it for the longest moment, unsure if Lena was telling the truth or just trying to placate her. She hugged herself, anything to keep her from trying to cross the divide between them. So badly, she wanted to reach out to her, but Lena didn’t seem to want it, and would probably reject her if she tried.

In the end, Kara decided that the very least she could do was trust what Lena said.

“D-do you know why I was so angry when I found out you had kryptonite back then?” she asked, eyeing her as Lena remained silent. “It wasn’t just…ego…or even fear. Not the way you think. I was never afraid that you would use it on me. It was because you were my best friend and I…I _loved_ you. To find out that you had this deadly poison, the only thing that exists on Earth that could kill me, and you were lying about it… It broke my heart.”

Lena tugged her fingers anxiously. “You don't have--”

But it was spilling out uncontrollably now, the dam collapsing.

“I thought, how could _you_ \- the person I loved so much and trusted so deeply - have secrets like that? And I reacted with anger because I'd backed myself into a corner. I couldn’t tell you that I was Kara, I couldn’t tell you how much it hurt. Because to you, I was just Supergirl, and you barely tolerated Supergirl. Then I made everything so…so… _so_ much worse. Exactly when I should have told you the truth, I lied even more instead. I was too scared to do it because I knew I was going to lose you.”

“This isn't--”

“And I couldn’t let that happen!” she continued determinedly. “I _couldn’t_. I made so many mistakes, Lena. The things I said earlier, at best, they were half truths, and I never should have put that on you. I am every bit as guilty, if not more, of making bad choices. I’m the worst hypocrite. I really am. I demanded honesty and blind trust from you when I wasn't willing to give it in return. Everything that I accused you of, I was the one that did it to you first.”

Kara shook her head with a helpless little scoff.

“This must be such old news for you. I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. I know that for you, this was a long time ago, but for me, it was _literally_...last week. These past few days have been so confusing, but you did not deserve how I reacted today. I’m so sorry.”

“Stop.” Lena exhaled. “I told you before, you have nothing to apologize for because I _did_ deserve that reaction. I did. Maybe not as the person I am now, but certainly for the person I was then.”

“No! No...” Kara shook her head, unable to take this separation for a moment longer. She crossed the distance between them and cradled Lena's face in her hands. She had to make her understand. Make her see somehow. “Lena...” she murmured. “ _No_. Not then and not now.”

Lena's gaze dropped, her dark eyelashes a sharp contrast against her pale skin. She looked so anguished. The desire to take that hurt away whipped through Kara so fast, she lost her breath.

She couldn't tear her gaze away from Lena's mouth and wondered at what it would feel like to have those lips on hers. Is that something she would have done? As Lena's wife, would she have taken her in her arms and kissed away the pain? Without thinking, she gently thumbed over her plump, bottom lip. Lena's eyes flew open and Kara was entranced by the bright green boring through her.

“I do want you,” she whispered. “More than anything.”

It was instinct more than anything else that had her lean down and kiss her.

Lena's breath hitched slightly when their lips met. It was a simple kiss, chaste and sweet, but it made Kara feel something she'd never felt before. Something that she couldn't begin to describe even with her fluent knowledge of over a dozen languages.

The only thing she knew was that she needed to feel it again.

She dove in with such urgency the second time that it surprised them both, but it was barely a heartbeat before Lena was kissing her back just as fiercely. She slid her arms around Kara's shoulders and clutched at her in a way that Kara imagined would be painful for a human, but perfect for her.

When Lena licked into her mouth, Kara's knees buckled, taking them a few stumbling steps backward against a metal table. Her entire body pulsed and throbbed with the most delicious sensations she'd ever experienced. Lena tasted so good. Smelled so good. Felt so good. Kara chased her lips again and again. When Lena broke away to breathe, Kara fervently searched for other places to lavish – cheek, nose, jaw, neck, throat, shoulders, anywhere and everywhere until Lena came back to her lips. Kara's head was spinning in absolute delirium.

And the smile was unavoidable. Between kisses, she couldn't help the ridiculous, giddy grin that spread across her face.

“So we just…get to do this all the time?” she asked breathlessly, lips meeting again.

Lena made a sound that sounded suspiciously close to a snort. “Something like that.”

“ _Rao_...” she murmured as Lena raked her nails across the nape of her neck, eliciting the most delectable shiver. “You mean we...could have been doing this all along?”

Lena bit down on her lower lip punishingly and Kara yelped in surprise.

_Right. Not the time._

Nodding wordlessly, she threaded her fingers in Lena’s loose hair as she pressed her into the table with her hips. Definitely not the time to discuss how much time they'd wasted...rather what Kara's obliviousness has caused them to waste. When Lena's thigh slipped between Kara's, the sheer pleasure that jolted through her body was almost too much. Kara gasped fearfully, grabbing onto metal table behind them and it groaned precariously under the pressure.

Lena slowed to a languid kiss and reluctantly broke away, resting her forehead against Kara's with a breathless laugh, lips swollen.

“It's all right,” she whispered soothingly as she stroked Kara's jaw with her fingertips, “you won't hurt me.”

“I-I'm sorry...”

Her heart was racing for all the wrong reasons now. Flashes of the destruction she'd wreaked only an hour ago went through her mind like a warning siren. She'd just lost control again, however slight, and the headiness was tainted by a bitter streak of fear.

“Shh.” Lena smiled, nuzzling her nose, and met her gaze with such tender affection that Kara sucked in another shaky breath. “I should probably explain how those red sun emitters came about.”

“No, you don't have to--”

Lena cut her off with a purposeful kiss and tugged at her playfully.

“I think you might be interested.”

“Okay,” Kara breathed as she gently brushed errant strands of Lena’s hair back from her face. Trying to regain control of her body that was still feeling dangerously out of control. “I am all ears.”

Lena traced the curve of Kara’s lips. “You'd never been... _intimate_ with a human before.”

She was already blushing, staring down at Lena’s neck to avoid her eyes. “Hm.”

“And you were so, so afraid of hurting me. It tormented you.” She nudged at Kara’s chin, urging her to meet her gaze. “You were so careful every time we touched, like you're doing right now, as if I'll shatter at any given moment.”

“You would if I wasn't careful,” Kara muttered, flexing her fingers against Lena’s side.

She'd nearly destroyed the table and they'd barely even touched each other. Kara felt close to dropping off into the depths of despair if she let herself think about it for a second longer.

“I simply...made up my mind that I was going to figure out a solution for it. I didn't want you to have to hold back or fear anything, not when we were together. I wanted you to be able to be free. I wanted you to feel free with me.”

Kara's eyes widened in realization. “So you developed a way to replicate the effects of a red sun? _For me_?”

Lena chuckled again. “I won't deny that it was for my benefit as well. It was not one of my most altruistic inventions.”

“Wow.” Kara breathed. “Then we've been able to...I've been able to _really_ be with you, like that?”

“All that and more,” she purred with a mischievous arch of her brow. “We actually don't even use them that much these days. The wonders that a little confidence and practice can achieve...”

She gulped.

Lena stroked soothingly down the side of her neck before resting both hands on her shoulders. “When I revealed the working prototype to you, do you know what the first thing you did was?”

“I could probably guess...” she mumbled shyly.

“You hugged me.”

Kara scrunched up her nose in confusion then Lena's smile was so soft and loving that she couldn't catch her breath for a moment.

“You took me in your arms and you hugged me with every bit of strength you had. Hard as you could. That was all you wanted, more than anything, just to be able to hug someone and not have to hold back, not be afraid of hurting them. You cried, so naturally I cried more. We were a mess. God, I think we stayed like that for...” she shrugged, “I don't even know how long, but I would have gladly hugged you for eternity if you’d asked.”

Kara's breath caught in her throat with a sickening turn of her stomach. Suddenly Lena's touch became too heavy to bear. She yanked away, moving to the other side of the room to put distance between them. Desperately, she tried to breathe, but her lungs wouldn't fill. Her heart stuttered and echoed in all the wrong ways. She was feverish, but cold and clammy at the same time, nothing like she had felt only moments before when... Her back to Lena, she stared at the ceiling with her arms crossed, violently willing herself back under control.

“Oh, did I...” Lena swallowed thickly, pulling at her fingers, “was that too much?”

“No, no, it's...you're...” she panted, shaking her head, utterly furious with herself.

Why was she acting like this? So pitiful. So unbearably weak. This wasn't who she was. This wasn't Kara Zor-El or Kara Danvers. And it certainly wasn't Supergirl. The past week had just been completely out of control and it was _so_ much.

Too much.

“I just...I can't really...I can't breathe....”

Kara pressed her hands to her forehead as if it would make it stop. She wondered if the red sun emitters were on again, even though she didn't see them. There was a crushing weight on her chest and she grasped at her shirt, tugging, as if that would release it somehow. She could hear her blood thumping in her ears. The room seemed to be tilting.

Lena said her name, but it sounded like she was underwater. Kara was being dragged by her ankle to the depths with Lena calling out from above.

“I can't believe I said all of those things to you!” she gasped, sounding strangled. Her chest heaved with each word. “I was so _cruel._ H-how could you let me... _touch you_...let alone… After what I said? Knowing...knowing that....”

She covered her face as she fell apart. After everything today, how did she still have tears left?

While Kara felt like she was falling through an abyss, utterly at a loss for how to cope, Lena – bafflingly - seemed to know exactly what was happening. She was calm and grabbed a tablet by the holographic projector.

“Give me permission.”

But Kara was crying too hard, choked for air, and Lena stepped closer, her voice tight with desperation now.

“Kara, _please_. Tell me I can turn it on. Just say yes.”

Glancing at her through tears as they spilled down her cheeks, she still couldn't find her voice, but managed to nod instead. Lena tapped the pad a couple times and red light spilled over them again. It seemed so different from before. It wasn't ominous or villainous at all, glowing ten times brighter, and everything around them looked warmer. It was a welcome contrast to the stark, sleek, cool tones of a science lab.

Lena tossed the tablet back on the table and went straight into her arms. Kara sobbed into her shoulder.

“Tighter than that,” Lena murmured against her ear. “I won't break, my love.”

Trusting her beyond a shadow of a doubt, she used her full strength to hold onto her as she wept.

Though Lena didn't break, Kara certainly did.


	7. Chapter 7

She was a Kryptonian burrito. A cuddly, exhausted, but...strangely content, Kryptonian burrito. It was the most at ease she'd felt since waking up to this unknown life.

After finally crying herself out, Lena helped her back to the house. Kara grabbed the nearest blanket, wrapped it around her, and promptly curled up on the couch to sleep, but not before asking Lena to stay with her. It seemed fine because Lena didn’t appear to have any intention of leaving anyway as she settled next to her. Tentatively, even sheepishly, Lena gestured to her lap and Kara didn’t need any more than that to pillow her head there and closed her eyes.

When she woke a little while later, it was to the most comforting feeling of Lena stroking her hair and speaking in hushed tones on the phone. Apparently, Alex never left. She'd been in the lab the whole time, just another section of it. Kara didn't really listen that closely to their conversation, only enough to know that Lena was giving her directives about reviewing the data she'd collected.

Sleepily, she nuzzled her face against Lena’s stomach, but froze when she realized what she was doing. Lena gazed down at her lovingly and dragged her fingers through her hair, grazing her scalp with her nails. The soothing gesture sent a shiver down Kara’s spine and with her confidence buoyed in that moment, she let herself relax again, pressing her nose to Lena’s belly.

“Hungry?”

“Sorta.”

“Ice cream?”

Kara gasped and stared up at her with perfectly round eyes of adoration. “How did you _know_?”

“You’re not exactly the unpredictable kind.”

She giggled, hiding her face again as a certain blush spread across her cheeks. “I know. I'm boring.”

Lena tugged on her ear until Kara would face her again. “You couldn’t be boring if you tried. Now...up.” She gestured for her to lift her head so she could stand.

Kara righted herself, stretching with a yawn, and snuggled back into the couch cushions. “How long was I out?”

“Not long.”

She looked at the clock across the room and an unexpected warmth filled her heart. Two hours. Lena hadn’t moved an inch for two hours while Kara slept on her. She rested her head on the cushion, watching Lena root around the freezer, pick up a spoon, and presented her with a gallon tub of ice cream.

“No bowl?”

Lena made such a face that Kara wondered at the validity of her own question.

“Since when have you ever bothered with a bowl? You’ll finish that thing in the next 8 minutes and whine about brain freeze. Then whine more about how you should be impervious to brain freeze when you have freeze breath.”

“Okay, one, I figured that me being a respectable married woman now and all, you would have tamed my unseemly single living habits such as eating directly from the carton.”

Lena rolled her eyes with such exaggeration it looked like it hurt.

“Two, it is a totally valid complaint that I can somehow be impervious to almost everything on Earth, but still be subject to something as lame as brain freeze! It’s a crock. I’m gonna ask Kal if he has them because if it’s just me, I’m going to be, like, two thousand times more bitter.”

Lena snatched the spoon out of her hand, ignoring vehement protests, and scooped into the ice cream, holding it up to Kara’s lips.

“Just eat it before I have to listen to another hour-long rant about this.”

Kara pouted at first, but opened her mouth, and let Lena spoon feed her the first bite. She took the utensil back with a small smile as she swallowed the frozen creamy goodness, and eagerly dug back in for more. Lena leaned sideways against the couch, head propped on her hand with a knowing smile.

After a few bites, Kara was feeling more like herself again.

“So...” she started hesitantly, “that was...a _total_ meltdown you had to deal with earlier, hm? I'm really embarrassed. I was acting like a crazy person.”

“No, don't do that. We've both had our fair share of those, especially in the beginning, and I definitely had more than you. It was difficult...navigating all that grief and guilt between us while we were starting to explore an entirely new kind of relationship. We both ran the gamut of emotions back then, rapidly cycling between extremes. I recognized the signs again today.”

“Then I've done that before? Been awful to you then broke down in a mess of guilt?”

Lena was guarded in her reply. “Something like that...” She sighed. “I used to have panic attacks where I thought I was too happy, that I didn't deserve to be. I had dark moments where I thought that I could never be good enough for you or be able to make up for the damage I caused. But you were _always_ there for me, reassuring and loving, and we got through it together. We all make mistakes, Kara. God knows I have. The point is that there's a light at the end. You showed me that.”

“Are you happy with me, Lena?”

“Very much so.”

“I feel like I make a terrible wife.”

“You are, hands down, the best wife I've ever had.”

Kara made a face. “I'm the only wife you've ever had...unless you've neglected to mention something kind of important.”

“Like I said...best one ever.” She smirked teasingly before her expression sobered a bit. “And I think you're happy too. With me, I mean.”

She was doing it again before she could even think about it. Kara set aside her ice cream, leaned in, and kissed her. It felt like the most perfect, wonderful, right thing she could ever do.

“I _know_ I'm happy with you,” she breathed.

Lena's smile was everything.

“So...you say I've done this before?”

Lena hummed gently in affirmation.

“Right. Uh. How many craters have I made then?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Craters?”

“Like...giant meteorite sized ones?”

“Well, that explains why Alex said our bathroom looks like a dust storm hit it.”

“Sorry. I'll clean it up.”

She ran her hand over Kara's knee. “I don't care about that. But did you leave a calling card?”

“A what?”

“Anything that could be traced back to you? If someone trying to surveil the site using satellite imaging, would they be able to notice anything... _Super_ about it?”

“I didn't leave a fiery blaze of my family crest, if that's what you mean.”

“No giant 'S'?”

“It's not an S!”

Lena giggled and that's when Kara realized she'd been teasing so she nudged her with a sock covered foot.

“Be kind. I can only have so many meltdowns in one day.”

“You're right.” She grinned. “Don't worry, I'll be gentle.”

Kara almost choked on the ice cream, face turning a bright pink.

“Are you...” Lena looked at her in surprise. “Oh my God! That was not me being suggestive!”

“I have learned very quickly that _everything_ is suggestive with you.” She grinned and innocently extended a spoonful of ice cream for her. “Truce?”

Lena stared at it for a moment before grudgingly giving in. Giggling, Kara pulled back the spoon and chased Lena’s lips.

They were interrupted by Lena's phone buzzing with an impatient Alex on the other end who wanted to see her in the lab. Kara was already lumbering off the couch with every intention of joining them, but stilled at Lena's hands on her shoulders.

“You don't have to. Really. And you’ll just be bored by our science babble.”

“You’d be surprised by how much I actually know about this stuff,” she protested. “Quantum physics was a breeze when I was five.”

Lena smiled despite herself. “It’s not your knowledge I doubt, just your interest. You’ve never had any patience for this sort of thing, as Kara or as Supergirl.”

Kara tilted her head curiously. “That's...really accurate. I’m honestly surprised at myself sometimes. Maybe I peaked early in the Science Guild. I mean, it's what I was supposed to do on Krypton. They even called me a prodigy, but now? I can’t help it. My eyes start to glaze over whenever it gets too layered and I feel a strong desire to start punching things instead.”

“We can unpack that later, but I’m gonna head down and see what Alex wants to talk about. Will you take care of dinner?”

Kara couldn't help but feel absurdly disappointed when Lena moved out of arms reach, but quickly tried to play it cool when she looked back at her.

“I can do that! I'll just whip something up--”

“God no. Don't you dare. We've had enough catastrophes today.”

Kara scoffed. “Wow. I think I'm only _moderately_ offended...”

“You can just order in.”

“But it's already 11.” She frowned. “Everything's closed.”

“I trust you to figure it out.” Lena disappeared into the hallway and returned with a bag over her shoulder, collecting papers and some tech devices that Kara didn't recognize. “Just nothing fried, please.”

“That's stifling my creativity, Lena.”

“We’re not all blessed with your Kryptonian metabolism, jerk.”

“Name calling? Really? What are you, ten?”

“Nothing fried!”

“I heard you the first time, wifey.”

Lena groaned. “I cannot believe that moniker is actually instinctual with you.”

“Wifey?”

“I’m going now!”

“To recap: you _love_ being called wifey and you’re craving all the _fried_ food tonight?”

Kara caught the plate chucked at her head with one hand. “Hey! You could have broken that!”

Lena just laughed as she walked out which made Kara wonder how many times over the years Lena had thrown random objects at her, testing her reflexes (and exert her own frustration), only to have Kara catch each one with ease every time.

It left her grinning from ear to ear.

* * *

Alex found something.

It was something you’d never really notice unless you were actively looking for it. Along with dozens of other tests she did in the past two days, Lena measured the chronological age of Kara's cells, tissue, organs, etc. Kara's body presented as that of a 20-year-old, which was nothing unusual for Kara because that's what every test had showed every year since she turned 20 (cue malcontent grumblings from the humans), but the scans of her brain were different. Kara's body aged differently than humans, but the pattern of electromagnetic activity in her brainwave frequencies evolved in a predictable way as she aged. It's a natural thing for brainwave patterns to adjust slightly as you grow older so anyone would have missed it, but Lena was exceptionally thorough and Alex was on a mission.

The scans of Kara's brainwaves that Lena did today should have been identical to the ones from a routine physical had four months ago, but the data was off. Mere nanometers of a difference, but it was the only deviation they'd been able to find so far. Following her hunch, Alex pulled up Kara's scans from a physical she had six years ago and compared them to ones that Lena did earlier that day.

An exact match.

The chronological age of Kara’s brain had somehow reversed. Her brainwaves were exactly what they'd been when she was 29-years-old instead of the near 35-year-old Kryptonian she was now.

Lena and Alex stood side by side as they stared in disbelief at a holographic projection of the results.

“This isn’t simply a case of amnesia,” Lena said, covering her mouth. “Either Kara is aging in reverse or something has altered her brain chemistry so that she’s completely lost six years. There would be no engrammatic imprints coded in her memory center because her mind, as it exists right now, has never experienced those memories to begin with.”

Alex was steadfast. “We’ll fix it.”

“She’s six years younger! She didn't lose her memory, she never _had_ it! I know we’ve ruled out time travel definitively, there isn’t a trace of tachyon particles, but this is not Kara as we know her. She really is existing as she did then.” Lena's stomach churned. “Her mind never actually experienced the last few years.”

“This is a clue,” Alex reasoned. “Not the end result. We don’t know for sure what this means. Let alone what could even cause such a thing to happen. It's...not possible! How do you de-age someone's brain without affecting the rest of their body? What if it's a Kryptonian cause?”

“You're thinking hereditary? Epigenetics?”

“It's one possibility. There's still so much we don't know about Kryptonian physiology. All of that information was lost when their planet was lost. Our most cutting edge technology still doesn't come close to the scientific advancements they made.”

“There's certainly no technology that exists on Earth that could achieve something of this magnitude so it has to be something alien.” Lena pinched the bridge of her nose. “If we were hoping to narrow down the possibilities, we failed spectacularly.”

“Look, if it's not hereditary or an issue of her own genetic makeup, then it has to be an attack of otherworldly means. That does actually give us something to go on...however small. Lena, it's more than we had before at least.”

She couldn't take her eyes off the projection as it rotated slowly, all the patterns and data markers clearly outlined. “Who would do this? If this is really the result of some… _bio-attack_ on Supergirl, what would they stand to gain?”

“I don’t know, but if someone is purposely sabotaging Kara then my guess is there’s something that happened in the past six years that they don’t want her to know.”

At that, she managed to tear her gaze away and shared a worried with Alex. They both knew that too much had happened since then to ever be able to narrow it down without more clues.

“I'll get Brainy in here tonight and we’ll work on it,” Alex reassured her. “Go be with Kara.”

“Absolutely not!” Lena shook her head. “We have a mountain of work ahead of us and there’s no way you two are doing it without me.”

“Normally, I wouldn’t argue, but I can see it in your face, Lena. As much as you want to work on this, you don't want to be away from her right now. This is me giving you permission. Get some rest. You’ve been at this all day and clearly experiencing some emotional stuff too considering the state my sister was in earlier. No, no, don’t even try to deny it!” She held up her hand. “I know you too well by now, Luthor. Go be with her. Listen to what every molecule in your body is screaming at you to do. Bad things happen when you ignore those instincts.”

Lena didn’t know how to respond. Alex really did know her too well these days, but it still didn’t alleviate the torn feelings about leaving her work for others to do. Kara was her wife and her wife was in trouble. Finding solutions to problems is what Lena did best. But after everything today, she couldn't bear to be away from Kara for long and she didn't want to have to drag her down here again just because she was the one feeling... _needy_.

“Brainy and I will start combing through this and in the morning you can join us. Kara will be more than fine with zipping around, exploring the lab…and _staying close_.” She gave her a knowing smile. “If all goes well, we'll have some working theories for you to help troubleshoot.”

Lena had no ground to stand on. Alex picked out each and every one of her concerns with alarming accuracy and flicked them away like it was nothing. Knowing it was a lost cause, she kissed her sister-in-law on the cheek in gratitude.

“Are you going to tell Kara what we found?”

“It can wait until tomorrow. Today was...”

“...rough,” Alex finished for her with an understanding nod. “Go. Get out of here,” she shoved her lightly, “Take care of her.”

“You know I will.”

* * *

Kara had fallen asleep on the couch again, but bolted up, alert as ever, the second Lena’s footsteps sounded on the floor.

“I’m awake! I am! And I did not forget dinner. It’s in the oven to keep warm.”

“I never doubted you for a minute. Where'd you get it?”

“Well, everything might be closed here, but Sydney's nightlife was just getting started.”

“Sydney, Australia?”

“No. Sydney, North Dakota.”

Lena stared at her for a beat before giving into laughter. “ _Wow_. Kara Danvers using sarcasm? You're in rare form tonight.”

She grinned cheekily. “What did Alex have to say? I got extra in case she joined us.”

“Nothing concrete yet,” Lena sighed, “but she’s following a lead. It’s probably an anomaly, but we’re investigating every variable.”

“I really appreciate how much you guys are doing for me. I know I’ve been thrown by all the changes, but I really want my memories back. It feels like I’ve lived a whole life and I don’t get to know about any of it.”

Lena leaned over the back of the couch and kissed her forehead. Kara felt it to the very tips of her toes.

“We’re going to find a solution. That’s a promise.”

“Then I know everything’s going to work out. You don’t make promises lightly.”

“Exactly.” Lena made her way over to the kitchen and started opening a bottle of wine. “So do you want to watch some TV or a movie with dinner?”

Kara eyed the dark TV screen with disinterest. “Sure. Whatever you want.”

“That's convincing.”

“No! No, I really am okay with watching whatever you want.”

“Is there something else you'd want to do?” she prodded gently. “It was only a suggestion, I'm not invested either way.”

“Well, I just... This might sound weird, but could we just be together? You could talk to me o-or not talk at all. I know it's been a really long day for us both so I would understand if you're tired.”

“Not weird at all.” Lena smiled. “What would you like to talk about?”

From the couch, Kara watched as Lena grabbed oven mitts and retrieved the food, portioning it out onto two plates. She could clearly tell which one was intended for her since the plate was overflowing compared to the other.

Surreal. It was all just so completely surreal.

Lena's domestic side was like spotting a rare species in the jungle, but here she was. Puttering around _their_ kitchen with bare feet and hair loosely tied, an over-sized sweater and leggings. It was so normal. So perfect. Her chest squeezed with such emotion, she could hardly bear it.

Before this, even when they'd been friends, Kara rarely got to witness Lena without the armor she put on for days at L-Corp and evenings at formal galas or red carpet events. Even when she came over for Game Night, she still had that strategic look about her, a carefully planned wardrobe to fit the precise occasion.

Here, she was just Lena. A Lena that felt safe with her. A Lena that felt at home when Kara remembered her once saying that she never really had a home. She still couldn't believe that she was able to do this for Lena, to be that person, and to be able to call Lena her partner, her wife, her _lover_... It was better than anything she'd ever dared to hope for.

In all her daydreams, of a life on Krypton and then a life on Earth, she tried to imagine a moment like this. A moment where there were no battles to fight or secrets about aliens. A moment where she was at home at the end of the day with the person she loved, doing something completely mundane and unimportant, and having it feel like the most important thing she would ever do. She'd tried so hard to picture what it would be like and sometimes even thought she got close to it, but being here now...she knew nothing else could compare. If this was her new life, she couldn't have dreamt of a better one. Even with all the loose ends and baggage between them, it didn't matter. Kara had faith, they would find a way through,. Despite what Lena thought, Kara's faith may have faltered, but never vanished. Not even close.

Overwhelmed by the sheer force of her desire to wrap Lena in her arms that very moment, Kara tamped down on it as hard as she could. After everything today, the last thing she wanted to do was be a clingy child that Lena needed to keep taking care of. But it didn't stop her from wanting to be in her arms right now with every fiber of her being.

Instead, she focused on answering Lena's question.

“Maybe you could tell me more about your life?”

“My life?”

“Yeah. We've been really focused on me and my stuff, but I...I would really like to hear about you. What these past six years have been for you.”

“Ah, I get it. Only talk about things that don't have anything to do with us.”

“I didn't mean it like that,” Kara replied seriously. “Really. I just...want to hear about _you_ and whatever else you'd like to tell me.”

Lena exhaled shortly. “I admit, my life in the last six years involves you pretty heavily. I doubt I could separate it.”

“Then tell me. Again. I-I didn't really hear a lot of the stuff you guys told me this past week. I mean I _heard it_ , but I didn't _process_ it...” She scrunched up her nose as she rubbed her forehead. “Not gonna lie, it totally freaked me out, but now I...I would like really be able to listen. All of it. Any of it.”

“I think I can manage that.” Lena held up a second newly opened bottle. “Wine?”

“Yes, please!”

It was at that moment that Kara realized she'd been so caught up in watching Lena prepare for dinner, that she'd completely forgotten to help with any of it! With a tiny burst of speed, she appeared next to Lena in the kitchen, easily balancing several plates of food and utensils in arms.

“Oh. Um. Where did you...where do we usually...?”

Lena looked at her for a moment before realizing the conundrum and simply pointed. “Dining room table.”

Nodding sheepishly, Kara carried everything over and set the table. It wouldn't always be this awkward, she reminded herself. Even if she had to learn everything all over again, it would get better. She'd figure things out as they went and she wouldn't have to keep doing this to Lena, reminding her that she knows nothing about their life or what it meant to be her wife.

Meanwhile, Lena poured two glasses from two separate bottles. One looked like a typical bottle of wine while the other seemed to be a strangely elaborate decanter. The way the crystal shimmered gave away its clearly alien nature. When Lena joined Kara at the table, she was careful to hand her the glass with the other wine, though it looked almost identical to her glass of Bordeaux.

“Fair warning, this is the one you love from Mringa.”

“Oooh, thank you!” Kara accepted it with flourish. “I think Alex mentioned this the other day.”

“It’s strong, but not Aldebaran rum strong. It gives you the same kind of buzz Earth wine gives a human.”

She sniffed at it curiously, pleased by the scent, and took a small sip before humming her appreciation. “I _do_ like this! How many can I have before I reach the danger zone?”

“Two. Exactly two. Any more than that and you are well on your way off the planet. Unfortunately, you’re convinced that it's three because you don’t feel it hit you until later and every single time it happens, you wake up the next morning complaining about how I didn’t try hard enough to stop you.”

“I will have no more than two,” she replied dutifully.

Lena just shook her head. “We’ll see.”

* * *

Kara had four.

It took the combined efforts of Lena and Alex to get her upstairs to bed around 1am.

“I love you guys so much... You’re just the best...the BEST!”

“Why do you keep letting her drink this stuff? She has no self-awareness when it comes to alcohol!”

“Why is everyone under the impression that I control the most powerful being on Earth?”

Alex shot her a look and Lena grinned sheepishly with a rosy flush. “Okay, in retrospect...not my brightest decision. I was only thinking about how my wife would want a glass of her favorite wine at the end of a tough day. I didn't think it through.”

“You think?”

“Come off it, Alex,” she replied exasperatedly. “Kara’s a grown woman and if she wants to be drunk, that’s her choice. How often does it happen, really? I’m hardly going to fault her for indulging in the rare few instances she ever does.”

“Do you think that flowers have feelings?” Kara slurred, oblivious to their conversation. “Like are pinks always happy? Do reds feel sexy or is it grrrr angry? Are purples bi-sex-ual? Or because of the plant thing then they’re bi-pod-ual? Bi-eukaa-ryy-ottic? Lena! You know these things. Tell me the things.”

“I don’t know the answer to that one, darling.”

“Aw...”

“But I like the idea. I think yellows must be even happier than pinks.”

“YEAH! Yes’m! You get it! Oh, Lena, you’re just the most...the most...MOST. Also you’re so pretty. Like SO pretty. I stare at you a lot. Which might be weird, but Alex promised that we’re married so maybe not so weird?”

“Oh God, I need to leave before she gets any further with this.”

“Alex!” she gasped happily. “You’re here! When did you get here? Never mind! I have to tell you a secret.”

Lena and Alex exchanged a glance as Kara lolled her head towards her.

“You'll never believe this,” she whispered dramatically, “but I _kissed_ Lena Luthor. On – the – lips.”

“That's...that's great, Kara.” Alex sounded strangled.

“And it's _soooooo_ good. Like _so_ good it makes me want to--”

The rest was muffled because she slapped her palm over Kara's mouth, staring daggers at Lena. “Hurry up. I refuse to hear the rest of this.”

“I'm going as fast as I can! You act like she doesn't weigh 500 pounds of pure muscle. Why don't _you_ hurry up?”

Alex stuck her tongue out in response. Kara was still talking, though completely unintelligible from behind Alex's hand.

They finally managed to get her on the bed, which was difficult because Kara kept flailing and rolling around. Alex pulled back the covers while Lena made quick work of Kara’s shoes and pants (which kicked off another giggling fit from Kara) before tucking her underneath the blankets.

“And I’m out! Brainy and I are gonna do an all nighter in the lab, okay?”

“I’ll be down first thing in the morning. And Alex? _Thank you_.”

“Oh! I have a sister named Alex!” Kara gazed up at Lena. “Do you know her?”

“Anytime. Do you think she’ll actually stay in bed or will you get a repeat of the floating stuff from last time?”

“I’m sure it’ll be fine, the wine doesn’t usually last long, but I still have the ties around here somewhere. Just in case.”

“She’d be so upset if she broke another souvenir like she did the one from Ibiza. She moped for weeks.”

“I know, I’ll—“ She was distracted by Kara who was pawing at her insistently for attention.

Alex immediately turned on her heel and ran out before she could potentially witness something she didn't need to see. “Goodnight!” she called back from the hallway

Lena sat on the edge of the bed next to Kara. “What is it?”

“I have floaty issues?”

“Sometimes.”

Kara dissolved into more drunken laughter and smothered her face in the soft pillows on their bed. Lena shook her head and kissed her cheek before starting to undress and headed for the shower.

“You’re leaving?”

“Only going to the next room,” she replied reassuringly. “I need a shower.”

“Ooh, me too! Me too!”

But before she could untangle herself from the blankets, Lena was there with a firm hand on her shoulder. “Any other time, it wouldn’t even be a question. But your memory is significantly lacking right now, sweetie, not to mention you're drunk.”

She huffed, puffing out her cheeks. “I remember plenty.”

“Next time. But I need you to stay in bed now, all right?”

“Why don't you want me?” She pouted exaggeratedly. “I thought you...y-you _said_ you're attracted to me. I heard you tell Alex.”

“When...? Never mind. Of course, I'm _attracted_ to you! That's not even a strong enough word for it.” She swallowed thickly. “Just not tonight.”

“Fine... But I’m gonna be naked when you get back and you’re _soooo_ gonna regret leaving me here.”

It took all Lena had to keep a straight face. “I regret it already.”

She headed for the bathroom, stripping as she went, and glanced back at Kara who was having a very difficult time figuring out how to escape her shirt. She smiled to herself and knew that by the time she came back, Kara would either be sound asleep or sober again.

Shutting the door behind her, she closed her eyes and leaned back heavily against the wood in a picture of exhaustion.

God, this day... This day.

She never imagined this would happen. That everything they went through those years ago...she'd have to live through it again.

She shook her head determinedly, refusing to cry. Not now. Not like this. She couldn't dwell on it. It wouldn't be this way for much longer anyway. Not if she had any say in it.

They had a lead. What it was leading to, she had no idea, but it was something. She would find the answer to this and restore Kara's memories. She would have her wife again. All she had to do was hold on until then and she could do that. Continue the balancing act and keep a brave face. In the meantime, Kara needed her and Lena could be strong for her. She _would_ be strong.

Running her fingers through her hair, she tugged slightly, and lifted her head.

“Damn.”

The bathroom still looked like a dust storm hit it.

Sighing, Lena pulled herself away from the door and gathered some products before heading out to use the guest bathroom instead.

It'd been less than five minutes, but there Kara was, blissfully passed out on her stomach with her arms flung wide. Her lower half was completely sideways off the mattress, but it didn't seem to bother her because she was floating two inches above the bed anyway.

And she was snoring.

Lena shook her head fondly and made her way down the hall.

She loved that ridiculous Kryptonian with all her heart. She only wished Kara could remember the same.

* * *

Kara woke before the sun.

She stared at the ceiling for a moment, feeling slightly off kilter, before turning to Lena who was sound asleep beside her. Memories of last night started to filter through and she grimaced, wiping her face. Mortifying. Absolutely mortifying.

Why didn't she just stop at two? Lena had specifically warned her. Looking down, she realized that she was still wearing some of her clothes from yesterday.

Gross.

She got out of bed as carefully as she could, not wanting to disturb Lena. It was an evil hour to wake a human when they required at least seven hours of sleep every night...or so she'd been told. Kara didn't need nearly as much.

She cleaned the bathroom first, grimacing at the sight, and hoped Lena wasn't too upset that she didn't get to it last night. After a quick shower, she put on some clean clothes, but not to go anywhere. She wasn't sure she even wanted to leave this house today. Instead, she just managed to go downstairs.

Yesterday was... _brutal_.

There wasn't really another way to describe it. Brutal and draining. A hundred things seemed to smash into her at exactly the same moment. Wounds, old and new, were torn open without warning and she felt every agonizing second of it.

This wasn't a coma dream, like the time she'd been trapped by her own fear.

This wasn't a mind prison or an alternate reality created by a Black Mercy.

It wasn't even a parallel Earth.

And suddenly it all just gave way. Everything had crashed down on her at once, toppling her into darkness, and she couldn't even tell which way was up. Then Lena was there, holding her like she'd never let go. Kara wiped away tears and took a steadying breath, willing herself to calm down. She needed to get a grip and figure out the next step. It couldn't keep going like this. All the heartache and anger...

It was just grief.

Always grief.

All that she'd lost. All that she was still terrified to lose. And she took it out on Lena. Then she apologized to Lena. Then she got drunk and made Lena take care of her.

_Damn it._

Kara slammed her hand on the kitchen counter then went completely still.

_Oh no..._

She'd hit it too hard.

Wincing, she peered down at the demolished marble counter-top and...found that there wasn't a single mark on it? Wait. That was impossible. She'd definitely used too much strength. There should be dust under her hand.

Maybe it was a delayed reaction? She braced herself, closing her eyes, and poked the counter, fully expecting the thing to crack in half and collapse.

But it didn't.

Opening one eye this time, she tapped it lightly.

Still nothing.

Bewildered, she grasped the edge and tugged.

It didn't budge.

_What the..._

She ran her fingertips over the smooth stone and bent down to inspect underneath, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. It looked and felt exactly like marble, solid as ever, except it couldn't be.

Unless?

Her eyes landed on a nearby basket of fresh fruit and she blew. Yep. Frozen solid.

Okay, she still had her powers, but this material definitely wasn't marble. Scratching her head, Kara tried to figure out, why, for the life of her, did they have such a heavily fortified kitchen counter?

Turning away from the new mystery, she glanced at the time. It was still early, but the sun was in the sky now. She listened carefully to the sounds upstairs and found that Lena was beginning to stir. Just the slightest change in her breathing and an uptick of her heartbeat, she was still asleep, but it wouldn't be long before she woke.

Baby steps.

She threw the counter-top one last suspicious glare as she walked by...just daring it to try something.

* * *

Lena reached for her wife before she was even fully awake, only to find that half of the bed empty. Cold too. Kara hadn't been there for a while. Her disappointed sigh ended up sounding more like a scratchy whine from the back of her throat.

“I'm here.”

Lena turned towards her voice, rubbing her eyes blearily. Kara was standing at the window in shorts and an oversized pajama top.

God, the sight of her still managed to take her breath away. Lena rolled on her side, watching Kara as she leaned against the glass, bathed in golden sunlight, looking out over the city – the city she would always love and always protect – while sipping her coffee.

The smell was glorious and Lena smiled, a melting warmth in her chest, when she realized that there was her very own steaming mug waiting on the bedside table. She roused herself enough to sit up against the headboard and took the cup into her hands with a hum of contentment. Kara looked back at her with a lopsided grin, tousled hair loose over one shoulder, and sheepishly butted her head against the window.

She was so fucking endearing, Lena could hardly bear it.

There was something different this morning. Something in Kara's eyes, the way she looked at her. It wasn't the same as before and it still wasn't her wife, not completely, but there was _something_.

“I definitely drank too much.”

“Really? I didn't notice.”

She snorted lightly. “I'll try to get better at that, but aside from ending the night with embarrassing drunkenness, I...I really liked our dinner. I mean, the talking to you part, not just the food part, though that was good too.” She was quiet for a long moment before lifting her head again. “This is real isn't it?”

Lena didn't quite know how to react to that. After a moment, she just gave her a slow nod. Kara breathed in tremulously, tracing the rim of her coffee mug.

“I think that's why... Why I did that yesterday.”

“Why you were angry?”

“That and...all of it. This has all been so crazy and too terribly wonderful to be true. I thought it had to be some kind of illusion. A different reality. A world that isn't mine because...because I don't get to have this, Lena. I don't get to be this happy.”

Her jaw tightened almost painfully in response. It'd been a long time since she heard Kara talk that way, but it didn't make it any easier to hear again. Tears formed faster than she could breathe, but she blinked them away just as quickly, taking deep breaths as she listened. Kara didn't need to deal with her falling to pieces right now.

“If it wasn't real then I didn't have to feel everything. I didn't have to remember the bad alongside the good. I could just enjoy it while it lasted. But it hasn't stopped. I'm still here, you're here, and we're...” Kara exhaled, gazing out the window again. “It's like you said. You dreaded this part. You can remember everything we did to get to this point, but I can't. It's still so raw and then I just...couldn't ignore it any longer.”

Lena's voice was tight and measured. “I understand.”

“I feel like I'm on a roller coaster. I don't know which turn is coming next. One minute I'm so...so _mad_ at you with my heart torn out of my chest and the next you're making me laugh, we're _kissing_ , and you're spoon feeding me ice cream.” She chuckled incredulously. “I don't know how to deal with all of this. For me, it's been such a long time since we've been able to just...be okay. You know? I missed it so much. I missed you, Lena. And just getting to talk and laugh and be with you last night, even after we argued so horribly. That we could still have that. Without the secrets, the lies, or Supergirl being the red and blue elephant in the room... It was everything. I really had no idea how much that was affecting us, our relationship, until now. I...I _really_ missed you.”

“I missed you too,” she admitted. “Back then, all through that year, I missed you so much it was a never-ending ache in my chest. There were days when I thought it was going to be a permanent feeling. That hole, the emptiness...the hurt.” She shook her head slightly and sipped her coffee, as if to dispel the memories somehow before they could take hold.

_It wasn't permanent._

She just needed to remind herself of that. She could remind Kara of it too. She would do it for them both.

“What do we do now?”

Lena looked at her questioningly.

“I mean, what's next? How do we... How did we do it before?”

“Honestly, I don't know.” She shrugged. “The sequence of events is kind of throwing me. It's out of order. While this is all _intensely_ familiar, it's not an exact replay. Last time, we at least had a few dates in before this started up.”

“Instead, this time we've already been married for years, but I just had my first kiss with you yesterday. I see how that could throw you off.”

Eyes sparkling with amusement, Lena touched the tip of her nose with her index finger to say she'd gotten it.

“So...what do we usually do after a fight?”

Heated memories flashed unbidden - at complete odds with the innocence with which Kara posed the question. Lena tried, and failed, to hide the smirk behind her coffee mug.

Kara made the softest 'eep' sound and ducked her head, fiddling nervously, but Lena could still see the red blooming at the tip of her ears. She would take pity on her, of course, but enjoyed the reaction all the same.

“When it wasn't _that_...” she trailed off slyly, taking another sip, while Kara was fascinated by some invisible speck on the floor, “it was about other ways to connect. To remember.”

“Remember?” she echoed, seeming to forget all about her shyness, gazing at Lena intently again.

“Why we chose each other,” she explained. “Kara, you know we had so many reasons not to be together, so much history that some days it seemed impossible that we could ever move past it. But we did. Slowly. Sometimes painfully. But I wouldn't have it any other way. We don't argue that much anymore, certainly nothing like we did in the beginning, but it still happens, and afterwards...when cooler heads prevailed, trying to see the other person's perspective, and compromise...I suppose whatever we did was about re-connection, in some form.”

Kara was contemplative as she stood there for a long moment, watching Lena with those unbearably soft, blue eyes. “I like that,” she said quietly.

The warmth in her voice was a thousand times more satisfying than the warmth from the coffee mug in Lena's hands.

“Do you trust me, Lena?”

“Yes.”

“You didn't even think about it.”

“I didn't have to.”

“So whatever it is I did these past years...somehow I earned your trust again.” She blew out a heavy breath. “I admit, I didn't think that was possible. I thought--”

“You'd lost me for good?”

Kara nodded slightly, almost fearful.

“I thought that too.”

The glass seemed to pulsate in the sun as a prolonged silence fell between them.

“I know you don't trust me right now and that's okay.” Lena hoped her smile didn't look too pained. “But if you can find a way to give me a chance, hard as that will be, I promise you – I won't waste it.”

“I'm still...figuring it all out.” She nodded slowly. “I trust that you don't want to hurt me, Lena. But when it comes to the rest... I don't think I'm ready. I really want to be and I want to try, but I just can't do it yet. Not like I did before.”

Lena was hardly surprised. “It's a work in progress.”

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“Of course it is.” Even if it hurt like hell.

Kara took a breath, gazing around the room. “Our home is amazing, you know?” she said softly. “I'm kind of seeing it for the first time this morning. Really seeing it, I mean.”

“Because now you believe it's real?”

She nodded. “And I can see us in it, you know? I can see where you and me come together. It's like a _way_ more upscale version of my loft. But this room is different than the rest of the house. It's like I see both of us and neither of us here. It's _so_ beautiful,” she said wonderingly. “It's strange how much it reminds me of my bedroom on Krypton. I never would have thought something on Earth could look like this.”

“I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“You designed it?”

“That's too strong a word for my part in it.” She smiled, losing herself a bit to nostalgia. “I asked Brainy to help me piece together what Argo City's architectural style was. It became rapidly clear that Krypton wasn't altogether different from Earth in that location is everything and Kryptonians loved filling their homes with as much sunlight as possible. Which makes sense, all things considered. So I aimed to do the same and hired architects to give us that. From this bed, we get to see everything from sunrise to sunset. East to West.”

“But all this glass...” Kara's brow furrowed. “Alex told me about how seriously you take security here. Doesn't it make us exposed?”

Lena took a long sip of coffee before putting it down and pushed back the blankets to join Kara at the window. She was wearing a Midvale High band t-shirt and underwear. It'd been a conscious decision last night, if she couldn't be in her wife's arms, she would take comfort in one of Kara's favorite old shirts and have that wrap around her instead.

Leaning in mischievously, as if she were about to share a secret, she said, “Wonders of technology never cease... No one can see us from the outside.”

“But it's so _clear_...”

“It's also bullet proof, shatter proof, missile proof, wrecking ball proof, you name it, and reinforced with Nth metal. However, it's still not enough to keep a Kryptonian from crashing through it. As I discovered when Alex convinced you to get drunk with her one night after she and Kelly broke up and you decided to fly through the window instead of using the actual sky entrance as it was intended...”

Kara winced.

“But that's why I have several other security measures in place. I've never been one to put all my eggs in one basket.”

“You've done so much for me...”

“For _us_. Besides, all of this stuff is just frivolous extra. It doesn't compare to what you give me every day.”

“What's that?”

Lena sighed, a mass of emotions tangled in her chest. “Like...the feeling I had when I opened my eyes just now to see you bathed in sunlight. You're this extraordinary Sun Goddess...the Champion of Earth...and my achingly beautiful wife. You give me love, Kara. Love, happiness, and a kind of peace I didn't know existed. Not a day goes by where I take it for granted.” She ran her fingers down Kara's bare arm, interlacing their fingers, and kissed her knuckles before hugging it to her chest. “What are some windows in a room compared to this?”

Kara blinked away tears. “Can I...” she croaked. “Would it be all right if I hugged you again?”

“I would like that very much.”

She knew what Kara wanted, to feel her completely, as she wrapped her arms around Lena's middle. Curling into the shape of her, arms around her shoulders, Lena tucked her face against the crook of Kara's neck, allowing her to hold her even closer. Kara laid her cheek against Lena's head and sighed. Lena could feel her sinking into their embrace and finally... _finally_....allowing herself to feel it. To be comforted. Content. Loved.

They stayed like that for a while, basking in the morning sun and listening to the sound of each other breathing.

“Wait, did you say we have a _sky entrance_?”


End file.
